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THE QUAKERS IN 
PEACE AND WAR 

AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR PEACE 
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE 


BY 

MARGARET E. HIRST, M.A. 

former Scholar of Newnham College , Cambridge 
Lecturer in the University of ‘Birmingham 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
RUFUS M. JONES, M.A., D. Litt. 

Author of “ The Inner Life 
“ Later Periods of Quakerism f etc. 


Are you faithful in maintaining our Christian 
testimony against all war as inconsistent with the 
precepts and spirit of the Gospel ? 

i (Official Query of the Society of Friends 
periodically read in its Meetings.) 

I told them I lived in the virtue of that life 
and power, that took away the occasion of all 
wars (George Fox, 1650). 


NEW 



YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


BX774S 

,Wzti5 ' 


First published in IQ23 


- s f 

PUBLISHER 


(i4// rights reserved) 


Printed in Great Britain by 

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING 



PREFATORY NOTE 


This historical study of the Society of Friends in its relation 
to the peace question was written in part before the War, and 
neither its plan nor its argument have been influenced by that 
catastrophe, though its completion and appearance have been 
delayed. In the chapters dealing with America I have had to 
rely mainly upon printed sources, in spite of kind help and advice 
from Friends across the Atlantic. But I trust that the account 
is accurate as far as it goes. Elsewhere, as will be seen, I have 
drawn largely from central and local Quaker records, many of 
which are preserved at the headquarters of the Society of Friends, 
Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, E.C., while others are still in the 
possession of the local Meetings. The difficulty has been in selecting 
from materials so abundant. In most of my citations the spelling 
and punctuation are modernized. 

My aim throughout has been to show the practice of Friends 
in maintaining their peace testimony, rather than to analyse or 
defend its basis. I have tried to give a fair picture of all incon¬ 
sistencies and divergences, and to show the varying emphasis laid 
on different aspects of the question at different times and under 
different conditions. Inaccuracies, I fear, there must be in a book 
ranging over three centuries and two continents, but I trust there 
are no wilful errors or suppressions. As a member of the Society 
I fully share its views upon war and the spirit of war, but I have 
tried to avoid overmuch comment, and to let Friends speak for 
themselves in their words and works of past and present days. I 
wished to state the facts, leaving readers to form their own opinion 
upon them. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Rufus M. Jones for 
his Introduction and to many Friends and others who have 

7 


8 


PREFATORY NOTE 


generously helped me by information and critical reading of my 
manuscript. Without the stores of the Friends’ Reference Library, 
and the unfailing and cheerful help of the late Librarian, Norman 
Penney, his successor, M. Ethel Crawshaw, and the Staff, this book 
could never have been written. It is not an official publication 
of the Society, and for its contents I alone am responsible. 

M. E. H. 


NOTE ON REFERENCES. 

“ In DP denotes that the manuscript or book is in the Friends’ Reference 
Library, Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, London. 

Camb. Journal = the edition of George Fox’s Journal , transcribed from 
the original manuscript, edited by Norman Penney, and published by 
the Cambridge University Press, 1911. 

J.F.H.S. = Journal of the Friends’ Historical Society. 


INTRODUCTION 


Here is an important piece of historical work worth doing and worthily 
done. The reader who has known little about the subject before 
will find the book packed with interesting details and narratives, 
and the reader who has been long en rapport with the main facts 
will find this account fresh and significant. 

We are not asked here to read another Utopia, or a new rainbow 
dream of the year 2023. It is the actual history of doings and events 
and practised faiths that are on record. It is, in fact, a book about an 
experiment, good enough in intention to be called holy, and effective 
enough, at least within the domain of those who tried it, to be called 
practical. Some who would not grant this last claim would, perhaps, 
now after the unveilings of the years close behind us, at least thank 
God that a little band of men and women, whether successful or not 
in the venture, were ready to go out, like St. Francis and his Little 
Brothers, to try the way of love and peace in a world where hate and 
war have already had more than a fair chance. 

One excellent feature of this book is the absence from it of all 
special pleading for an abstract theory. There is no attempt to 
prove that swords can with perfect safety be beaten into productive 
ploughshares and spears into reaping sickles. It is not a treatise on 
the elimination of physical force from human society. It is rather 
the story of a definite adventure, on the part of a group of Christian 
believers, to take their faith very seriously and to put their religion— 
their loyalty to Christ—into actual practice as a way of life. Instead 
of debating in words what the whole world ought to do with its 
complicated problems, the persons here dealt with have burned their 
bridges and cut the bands of social entanglement, and have set 
themselves to exhibit in deeds, even if in small compass, a programme 
of life which they believed would build a new world, if all men 
followed it, as they have tried to do. 

Many persons—it has now grown to be a multitude—accept this 
same way of life, this same pacific attitude in the periods between 
wars. They abhor the methods of war and the effects of it, but 

9 


10 


INTRODUCTION 


too often in the past such persons have found themselves swept into 
the war-mind, the war-passion, when their nation entered upon a 
concrete war. The particular war on hand has seemed to them an 
exception to the general principle. They are caught by the moral 
slogans, the idealisms of the hour, and they are carried on either into 
sympathy with it or participation in it. One of the contributions 
of the Friends, as these pages will show, has been their persistent 
maintenance of their convictions, their consistent practice of their 
vision and insight, even in the hard conflict of loyalties. They 
have formed a Peace Society which has never adjourned and never 
postponed to a more convenient season its labours for peace. 

The most important thing about the experiment is not its 
magnitude, not its reverberations across the world, but its spirit , 
its exhibition of a new kind of force, the demonstration and power 
of the way of love and fellowship. We have grown used, almost 
callous, to compromise in the sphere of religion. We have seen the 
Evangel of a kingdom of God fitted into the political schemes of 
great empires and clipped down to meet the demands of a life and 
civilization still deeply paganized. We have heard it said again and 
again that Christianity has not so much failed as that it has not yet 
been tried. It is, therefore, a relief to discover a remnant of those 
that call Christ their divine Leader who actually set about doing, 
in uncompromising fashion, what He said His followers should do ; 
who will not hate, who will not kill, who will not join in the work 
of starving little children to death, but who insist, at whatever risk 
or sacrifice, upon going on with their programme of love and co¬ 
operation, their practice of the kingdom of God, even in the midst 
of hate and havoc. 

This story, which covers two hundred and seventy-five years, has 
its failures and its trivialities, its blunders and its humorous aspects. 
Those who have shared in the experiment have no illusions about the 
difficulties or the blemishes. They are extremely humble over the 
role they have played and the thing they have accomplished. Their 
one concern has been and is to keep the faith and to follow the gleam . 

“ *Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 

But the high faith that fails not by the way.” 

Rufus M. Jones. 


CONTENTS 


Prefatory Note 
Introduction 


PAGE 

7 

9 


INTRODUCTORY 

CHAPTER 

I. The Christian Churches and Peace . . . . i$ 

PART I 

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

II. The Early Testimony, 1643—60 . . . . . 39 

III. Years of Persecution, 1660-1702.69 

PART II 

THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 


IV. 

Early Apologists for Peace, 1653-64 . 

• 

• 113 

V. 

Robert Barclay the Apologist 

• 

• • 134 

VI. 

William Penn and John Bellers . 

. 

. . 153 


PART III 

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

VII. Days of Tradition, 1702-55. 177 

VIII. In Time of War—England and Ireland— 1755-1815 194 

IX. Some Disownments, 1774-1815.225 


11 




12 


CONTENTS 


PART IV 


CHAPTER 

X. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

Peace and War, 1815-99. 

PAGE 

243 

XI. 

John Bright. 



2 73 


PART V 





FRIENDS ABROAD 




XII. 

The West Indies. 



307 

XIII. 

The American Colonies .... 



327 

XIV. 

Pennsylvania. 



353 

XV. 

The War of Independence . 



383 

XVI. 

The United States .... 



416 

XVII. 

Friends in Europe. 



452 


PART VI 





CONCLUSION 




XVIII. 

The Twentieth Century 

• 

• 

481 


APPENDICES 




A. 

List of Soldiers and Sailors who became 
BEFORE THE YEAR l66o .... 

Friends 

527 

B. 

The Testimony of the Soldiers, 1657 

. 

. 

530 

C. 

George Fox to Oliver Cromwell, 1654 

. 

. 

532 

D. 

Address to the Emperor of Russia, 1854 

. 

. 

534 

E. 

The Protest of the German Friends against 
Philadelphia, 1688. 

Slavery, 

536 

F. 

Statistics of Enlistment, 1917 

. 

. . 

00 

to 


Index . 



539 










INTRODUCTORY 


\ 


Full long our feet the flowery ways 
Of peace have trod, 

Content with creed and garb and phrase : 
A harder path in earlier days 
Led up to God. 

Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear, 
Are made our own ; 

Too long the world has smiled to hear 
Our boast of full corn in the ear, 

By others sown; 

To see us stir the martyr fires 
Of long ago, 

And wrap our satisfied desires 
In the singed mantle that our sires 
Have dropped below. 

But now the cross our worthies bore 
On us is laid. 

Profession’s quiet sleep is o’er. 

And in the scale of truth once more 
Our faith is weighed. 

The levelled gun, the battle-brand 
We may not take : 

But calmly loyal we can stand 
And suffer with our suffering land 
For conscience’ sake. 


Stanzas from Anniversary Poem , 1863, by J. G. Whittier, 


CHAPTER I 


THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND PEACE 

Even those whose acquaintance with the Society of Friends, or 
Quakers, is of the slightest have a general idea that among its 
doctrines is a belief in the un-Christian nature of war, of which 
the refusal to take part in war or military training is the corollary. 
An odd illustration of this opinion is the application by soldiers of 
the term “ Quaker ” to a dummy gun, used to draw the enemy’s 
fire, which of course it cannot return. The grounds of this prin¬ 
ciple among Friends, and their practice of it during nearly three 
centuries will be set forth in the later chapters of this book. But 
it is less generally known that the same belief was widely held 
among early Christians, that it was a tenet of some mediaeval and 
Reformation sects, and is even now maintained by some other 
Churches, of which the Mennonite body in Russia, Germany, and 
America is the chief in point of numbers. The following pages 
give a brief account of the peace views of these non-Quaker 
bodies—views which were often one cause of the persecutions 
they endured. 

In the Christian Church of the first three centuries there 
existed a strong body of opinion which, basing itself upon the words 
of Christ and the spirit of His teaching, held that warfare and 
bloodshed were impossible for His followers. Professor Harnack, 
in his short study Militia Christi , after making a careful examination 
of the evidence, came to the conclusion that, at any rate until the 
time of Marcus Aurelius, the soldier’s life was held to be in such 
obvious conflict with that of the Christian that no Christian entered, 
and all converted soldiers left, the Army. 1 Justin Martyr, the 

1 Harnack says : “ Es entstand auch keine ‘ Soldatenfrage *: der getaufte 
Christ wurde eben nicht Soldat ” {Militia Christi , p. 49). Neander {Church History , 
i. 125) argued that “ only a minor party among the Christians ” objected to the 
occupation of a soldier. Rigaltius (Nicholas Rigault) and Beatus Rhenanus, 


16 INTRODUCTORY 

Apologist, writing in the reign of Antoninus Pius, testifies to the 
peaceful character of the Christian religion {First Apology^ 39 ; 
Trypho , no). He died about a.d. 165, but some later editor 
appended to his Apology an alleged letter from the Emperor Marcus 
Aurelius to the Senate, in a.d. 174, ordering a general toleration 
of Christianity, on the ground that when hard pressed by thirst 
and the enemy his army in Germany was saved by the prayers of a 
large body of Christians in the Twelfth Legion. Their supplica¬ 
tions were followed by a storm which quenched the thirst of the 
Romans and terrified the enemy into flight. Hence the Legion 
became known as the “ Thundering.’’ Tertullian twice alludes 
to the story, but though the deliverance is recorded by historians, 
the Christian element in it is probably false and the letter an 
invention. The Twelfth Legion had been named the Fulminata 
(Thunderstruck) for generations, and Marcus Aurelius permitted 
a severe persecution in the South of France in a.d. 177. The 
letter contains one curious sentence about the Christian soldiers. 
“ They began the battle [i.e. prayer] not by preparing weapons 
nor arms nor bugles, for such preparation is hateful to them , on 
account of the God they bear about in their conscience .” 1 

But during the next century and a half, as Christianity spread 
and the early hope of the immediate second coming of Christ faded, 
the Christians began to make that compromise with the world 
which was fully carried out by Constantine. The writings of the 
Fathers and the legends of the Church give abundant testimony 
that the Christian soldier was no longer an anomaly, and by the 
year 323 the new faith must have been widespread in the ranks, 
for how else could Constantine, owing his power to the army, 
have ventured on the adoption of Christianity as the official religion 
of the Empire ? 

Even in this later period, however, there were great leaders 
of the Church, for example, Tertullian (born circa 160) and 

a Humanist friend of Erasmus, both accept Tertullian as a complete opponent of 
war. “ Christianis omnibus ubique militiam interdicit Auctor,” says the former in 
his edition of Tertullian (1634), and the latter : “ Haud dubie nunquam credidit 
futurum Tertullianus ut Christiani mutuis armis concurrerent.” A recent study 
of the question is The Early Christian Attitude to War, by Dr. C. J. Cadoux, 1919 
(The Swarthmore Press, Ltd.). 

1 Dr. Cadoux {op. cit ., pp. 230 foil.), however, considers that “ there can be no 
doubt of the main fact, that in or about a . d . 174 the Legio Fulminata contained 
a considerable number of Christian soldiers.” The miraculous rainfall is represented 
among the scenes on the Column of Marcus Aurelius at Rome. 


THE CHRIST 1 JN CHURCHES AND RE ACE 17 

Lactantius (born circa 270), who maintained the old testimony 
against the soldier’s profession. There were also many occasions 
on which the devout Christian soldier found himself in opposition 
to the State and his commanders. Under the Rax Romana it was 
not so much the question of war and battle, as that of his ordinary 
military duties in time of peace, which roused the Christian’s 
conscience. The military garrison in the provinces was the engine 
of criminal law ; it was the duty of officers to pronounce and 
soldiers to execute death sentences, and the early Church, as a whole, 
included capital punishment among the forms of blood-shedding 
forbidden by the Gospel. How, again, could a Christian reconcile 
the sacramentum , or military oath of unconditional submission to 
his Emperor, with the other vow of obedience to his God ? Lastly, 
the official sacrifices which all soldiers were bound to attend, the 
worship of past Emperors and of the genius of the living ruler, the 
reverence paid to the standards, and the constant practice of pagan 
rites and superstitions, must all have placed a conscientious believer 
in a delicate and difficult position. Some attempted to compromise, 
and, while attending pagan ceremonies, protected themselves from 
their evil influence by making the sign of the Cross. Others took 
some convenient opportunity of leaving the army. Others simply 
absented themselves from sacrifice. The result of this last step 
evidently depended largely on the attitude of the ruling Emperor, 
and perhaps still more on the temper of the commanding officers. 
In times of persecution such “ nonconformists ” were the first to 
suffer ; in times of peace, even, there are occasional records of 
martyrdom ; but in many cases the practice must have been 
tolerated. 1 It must be remembered that conscription, though 
nominally in force, was little employed, since the army, compara- 
tivelv small in proportion to the great masses of population within 
the Empire, found ready recruits among the warlike peoples of the 
recently conquered northern provinces. In the more settled regions 
exemption could be purchased with little difficulty. The clearest 
instance recorded in the martyrology of an objection on Christian 
grounds to actual warfare occurs in the legend of St. Martin of 
Tours (born circa a.d. 316). Himself a Christian, he was forced 
into the army by heathen parents, and later his legion was among 
those stationed on the Rhine to resist the inroads of the barbarians. 

1 See various instances in Eusebius, Church History , vi. 5, 41 j vii. 15 } viii. 4. 
Lactantius (?), De mortibus persec ., 10. Tertullian, De Corona , 1. 

2 


i8 


INTRODUCTORY 


One day, when a donative, or money gift, was being distributed 
among the soldiers to hearten them for the coming battle, Martin 
asked for his discharge. “ I am the soldier of Christ, it is not lawful 
for me to fight.” The general taunted him with cowardice, where¬ 
upon he offered to stand unarmed next day in the thickest of the 
battle, to prove his faith in the divine protection. He would have 
been taken at his word had not the enemy sued for peace, and 
shortly afterwards he was allowed to leave the army. The story of 
a young African conscript, martyred under Diocletian in a.d. 295, 
presents some features of peculiar interest. Brought before the 
proconsul at Teveste (Tebers, in Algeria), Maximilian, a youth 
of twenty-one, withstood persuasion, arguments, and threats with 
his one simple answer, “ I am a Christian, I cannot serve,” and at 
last suffered death “ with a cheerful countenance.” 1 

It is remarkable that even in the third century and the early 
part of the fourth century the Christian apologists, while admitting 
that their brethren were serving in the army, still laid down in 
emphatic terms the incompatibility of war and military service with 
Christianity. Tertullian, before and after joining the sect of the 
Montanists (which stood for strict adherence to New Testament 
teaching), discusses the question at length. 

“ For what wars should we not be fit, we who so willingly 
yield ourselves to the sword, if in our religion it were not counted 
better to be slain than to slay ?” 2 In the preceding sentence he 
stated that Christians had filled “ the very camp.” Again : “ How 
shall a Christian be a fighter, nay, how shall he even serve as a 
soldier in time of peace, without a sword ? ” 3 In De Corona , a 
work of his Montanist period devoted entirely to the dilemma of 
the Christian soldier, he recounts every moral and religious objection 
to adopting the profession, but adds that if one who is already a 
soldier is converted, his case is different and he may be compared 
to the soldiers of the New Testament. “ Yet, at the same time, 
when a man has become a believer and faith has been sealed, there 

1 Dion the proconsul said : “ In the august retinue of our lords Diocletian 
and Maximian, Constantius and (Galerius) Maximus, there are Christians who 
are soldiers, and serve as soldiers.” Maximilian answered : “ They know what 
is best for themselves ; but I am a Christian, and I cannot do evil things.” Dion 
said : “ Those who serve as soldiers, what evil things do they ? ” Maximilian 
answered : “ You surely know what they do ” (translated from Acta Maxi- 
miliani. Ruinart, Acta Marty rum, pp. 340 foil.). 

* Apologeticus , 37 3 De ldolatria, 19 . 


THE CHRIST UN CHURCHES AND PEACE 19 

must be either an immediate abandonment of it, which has been 
the case with many ; or all sorts of quibbling will have to be resorted 
to in order to avoid offending God, and that is not allowed even 
outside of military service ; or, last of all, for God, the fate must 
be endured which a citizen-faith has been no less ready to accept.” 1 
About a.d. 178 Celsus, in his controversy with the Christians, 
urged them “ to help the Emperor ... to fight for him ; and 
if he requires it, to fight under him or lead an army along with 
him.” This appeal, if words mean anything, must mean that 
Christians were currently believed to have a scruple against military 
service. Seventy years later Origen’s reply admits the fact, 2 but 
argues that since priests are exempted from warfare in order to 
offer sacrifice with pure hands, Christians have an equal right to 
exemption, since they all as priests of the One true God offer 
prayers on behalf of those “ fighting in a righteous cause.” “ And 
as we by our prayers vanquish all demons who stir up war, and lead 
to the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, we in this way are 
much more helpful to the Emperor than those who go into the 
field to fight for him. . . . And none fight better for the Emperor 
than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, even at his 
command (ou GvorTparevo/jbeOa fiev aura), kclv € 7 T€iyr) . . . ). But 

we fight for him in our own army, an army of piety, by our sup¬ 
plications to God.” 3 Some of these later Fathers are as emphatic 
in their condemnation of war as their predecessors. Origen’s 
concession of “ a righteous cause ” was not admitted by his con- 
tempory Cyprian, who described war as “ wholesale murder.” 4 
Lactantius, half a century later, has an eloquent passage condemning 
the Roman deification of great conquerors and slayers of men .5 
More than once he asserts the superiority of spiritual over physical 
force. “ If you meet injustice with patience ... it will imme¬ 
diately be extinguished, as though you would pour water upon a 
fire. But if injustice has met with impatience equal to itself, as 
though overspread with oil, it will excite so great a conflagration, 

* Tertullian, De Corona , n. The Rev. J. Bethune-Baker, in his short study. 
The Influence of Christianity on War (1888), considers that Tertullian’s objection 
to soldiering rested entirely on the pagan associations and practices of the army. 
But the objection to actual warfare is plainly expressed in De Corona. 

1 In his Horn, in Jesu Nave , 15, he says (on Ephes. vi. 11-17) the apostle knew 
“ nulla nobis jam ultra bella esse carnaliter peragenda.” 

3 Origen, Contra Celsum , viii. 73. 

4 Cyprian, Epistle to Donatus. 

5 Lact., Divine Institutes , i. 18. 


20 


INTRODUCTORY 


that no stream can extinguish it but only the shedding of blood.” 1 
War, he says elsewhere, though esteemed lawful by the State, is 
forbidden to the Christian. 2 3 4 5 

But with the accession of Constantine and the official recog¬ 
nition of Christianity (“ that fatal encircling of the cross with the 
laurel,” as it has been called by a Quaker historian 3 ) the leaders of 
the Church modified their opinion. Augustine, a hundred years 
later, goes far enough to satisfy the most aggressive War Lord. “ The 
Emperor Julian was an unbeliever, an apostate, an idolater ; yet 
Christian soldiers served under him. When indeed a question 
arose as to their obedience to Christ, they acknowledged only Him 
who is in heaven. Whensoever the Emperor ordered them to 
worship idols, or to offer incense, they preferred God to him. But 
when he said, ‘ Draw out the line of battle, march against this or 
that nation,’—forthwith they obeyed their King.” 4 “ Be, even 

while warring, a peace-maker,” he wrote in another passage. 5 In 
his great treatise, The City ofGod y Augustine included only wars waged 
“ by the command of God ” among the forms of manslaughter not 
forbidden by the Sixth Commandment, on which Vives, the Spanish 
humanist, commented in his edition of the treatise, that certainly 
God never commanded the Christians of sixteenth-century Europe 
to engage in their war of mutual destruction. 6 7 

From this date the official Church raised no protest against 
Christian participation in war. Athanasius indeed might assert 
that barbarian tribes when converted turned from war to agriculture 
and “instead of arming their hands with the sword lift them in 
prayer,” but his hopes were soon belied by the fanatical wars against 
infidels and heretics waged by these converts .7 Soon ecclesiastical 
and civil legislation was needed to restrain priests and bishops from 
themselves taking part in the slaughter. Neander gives a naive 

1 Lact., Divine Institutes , vi. 18, also v. 17, 18. 

* Ibid., vi. 20. 

3 Backhouse and Tyler, Early Church History , p. 317. The allusion is both 
to the legendary vision of Constantine and to his actual adoption of the labarum 
or Christian emblem as the standard of Rome. Cp. Gibbon, Decline and Fall , 
c. 20. Harnack says of the Vision, “ Der Christengott hatte sich als Krieg- und 
Siegesgott offenbart ” ( Militia Christi, p. 87). 

4 Augustine on Psalm cxxiv. 

5 Augustine, Epistle 189. 

6 De Civitate Dei , i. 20. 

7 Athanasius, De Incarn. Verbi, , § 51, 2. The Council of Arles, a.d. 314, 
in its Third Canon specifically censured deserters from the Army. 


THE CHRIST UN CHURCHES AND PEACE it 

account of the conditions which led to the famous capitulary of 
Charles the Great. 1 

“It being found,” he says, “ that a very bad impression was 
made on the minds of the multitude, when clergymen fell wounded 
or dead in battle, the Emperor Charles was entreated to make a 
provision against the occurrence of such things in future.” The result 
was the Capitulary of a.d. 801, to the following effect :— 

“ That no priest should thereafter engage in battle ; but that 
two or three chosen bishops should attend the army, with a certain 
number of priests, who should preach, give the blessing, perform 
mass, receive confession, attend the sick, administer extreme unction, 
and take especial care that no man left the world without the 
communion. What victory could be hoped for, when the priests, 
at one hour, were giving the body of the Lord to Christians, and 
at another were, with their own wicked hands, slaying those very 
Christians to whom they gave it, or the heathen to whom they 
ought to have been preaching Christ ? ” 2 

This ordinance did not restrain Popes and bishops of the Middle 
Ages from waging wars like any temporal ruler, but it did emphasize 
afresh the distinction between clergy and laity which had already 
been established by the doctrine of a celibate priesthood. The 
clear statement that it is sinful for Christian priests, but lawful for 
Christian laymen to slay their fellow-Christians marks the distance 
travelled since the second century after Christ. From the time 
of Constantine the general protest against Christian participation 
in war is only voiced by heretical sects, about whom we have 
unfortunately little definite information, and that little, since it 
comes mainly from their persecutors, cannot be accepted without 
question. Even in the second century heresies appeared, to protest 
against the growing conformity of the Church to the world. The 
reversion to a more simple, and even ascetic, creed began in Phrygia, 
the home of many Eastern cults. Its leader, Montanus, gave his 
name to the sect of which Tertullian was the most famous member, 
and it is mainly from the latter’s strenuous opposition to war and 
military service that the deduction is drawn that such opposition 
was a special feature of the Montanist creed. The body, though 
persecuted, survived in Asia and North Africa into the fifth century, 
and may have linked itself on to later heretical movements. 
Marcion, the founder of the other great heresy of the second 

* Neander, Church History, v. 125. a Mansi Concl., t. xiii. f. 1054. 


INTRODUCTORY 


22 

century, was also a native of Asia Minor, from Sinope in Pontus. 
In his teachings there was much that was wild and strained, largely 
borrowed from the confused metaphysics of the Gnostics. But a 
distinguishing feature of his heresy was the rejection of the Old 
Testament on the ground of its incompatibility with the Gospels 
and the teachings of St. Paul. The Old Testament God (he 
argued), harsh and revengeful, urging men to war and cruelty, could 
not be the Father of the merciful, peace-giving Christ. Rather 
he was a false power, the Gnostic Demiurge, inferior and opposed 
to the true God. In fact, Marcion approached the position of 
the liberal theologian who told his opponent that “ your God is my 
Devil.” Origen, who detested war as much as Marcion did, tried 
to meet the attack on the Old Testament by an attempt at allegory, 
explaining its frequent wars as types of the Christian struggle against 
sin and evil. 1 Many Marcionites in time were absorbed into 
Manichaeanism, but the influence of the sect is marked in some 
later heresies. 

Did we know more about a Jewish sect, the Essenes, which 
arose in the second century before Christ, we might be able to 
trace its influence also in the early Christian Church. But the 
accounts given by Philo and Josephus of these ascetic celibate com¬ 
munistic groups, dwelling in villages on the shores of the Dead Sea, 
do not afford much clue to their origin or development. Among 
the oaths by which they were bound, one is said to have been “ to 
hurt no man voluntarily or at the command of another,” and Philo 
says expressly that among the trades forbidden to them was the 
manufacture of weapons or of war equipment. 

In the thousand years between Augustine and Luther the Church 
was disturbed by many groups of “heretics” or dissenters from 
established orthodoxy. Those which are of interest in relation to 
the question of peace and war seem, broadly, to belong to two 
classes. Some, under the influence of the Gnostics and possibly 
of older Eastern cults, adopted a rigid asceticism, cut themselves 
off from the ordinary practices of the world, and were accused of 
secret unhallowed rites and mysteries. They are often described as 
Manichaeans, but some of their extravagances seem to point to a 

* Harnack remarks {Militia Christi, p. 26) that neither side in the controversy- 
had any idea of religious evolution—of the possibility of development in man’s 
conception of the Deity. But (he adds) it will always be the glory of the Marcionite 
Church that it chose rather to sacrifice the Old Testament than to dim the picture 
of the Father by inserting the lineaments of a God of War. 


THE CHRISTUN CHURCHES AND PEACE 23 

more remote origin and to be a survival of the taboos and fetishes 
of primitive races. The other early “dissenters” were groups of 
earnest believers, drawn together to practise their interpretation of 
true Christianity. This, they thought, was revealed to them 
through prayer and meditation, either singly or in united worship, 
and through study of the New Testament. But the actual points 
of dissent are curiously the same in all these sects. They tended to 
exalt the New Testament and belittle the Old, to reject or modify 
the distinction between priest and layman, and in some cases the 
ecclesiastical sacraments and ritual. They opposed war, military 
service and judicial oaths, and denied the right of the State to inflict 
capital punishment. It is noteworthy that it is against the earlier 
and less-known sects that the Church controversialists and historians 
level the most damaging charges—charges which bear a marked 
resemblance to the distorted opinions about the early Christians 
held by their pagan neighbours. These early sects are conveniently 
labelled Gnostic or Manichaean, and Dualistic views are ascribed 
to them, but in sober fact very little is known about either their 
origin, their numbers, or their influence . 1 

The Paulicians, who existed in Armenia in the seventh century, 
may have been descendants of Marcionite communities, if it is true 
that their name was acquired by the emphasis they laid upon the 
Pauline writings. Their views spread westward ; in the ninth 
century they appeared in what is now Bulgaria and Macedonia 
under the Slav name of “ Bogomili,” or “ Lovers of God.” Many 
of the Christians in Bosnia at the time of the Turkish conquest 
belonged to this sect, and its views soon met with a welcome in 
parts of Western Europe, particularly in North Italy and the South 
of France. Various titles were given to them—Paterini, Publicani, 
and others of obscure origin—but the most generally accepted was 

1 Ordinary works of reference give some information about the sects briefly 
mentioned in this chapter. For more detail the reader may be referred to the 
following : Hastings, Dictionary of Religion and Ethics ; Schaff-Herzog, Encyclo¬ 
pedic ; Harnack, History of Dogma (English translation) ; Rufus Jones, Studies 
in Mystical Religion , 1909 ; Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
Centuries, 1914. For the Waldenses. Muller , Die Waldenses . . . bis zum Anfang 
des 14 Jahrhunderts 1886, is a learned work with an exhaustive bibliography 
of mediaeval authorities. ; S. R. Maitland, Facts and Documents ; . . illustrative 
of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses , 1832 ; and H. C. Lea, History of the 
Inquisition , i. 1888, are also valuable ; R. Barclay, Inner Life of the Religious 
Societies of the Commonwealth, 1877, has a mass of information about early 
Continental and English Baptists, including the Mennonites. 


INTRODUCTORY 


24 

Greek, Cathari, “ the pure ones.” 1 In Italy Atto, Bishop of 
Vercelli, denounced them in a.d. 942 for their errors (the tenets 
mentioned above), and particularly for their assertion that the law of 
Moses was not a guide to Christians. Since the Crusade of 1208 
against the heretics of Southern France was first undertaken against 
those round Albi in Languedoc, the French Cathari were then 
and later termed Albigenses, but this was a wider term, and included 
other sects, especially the Waldenses. The more extreme among 
the Cathari are said to have practised celibacy, self-mutilation, and 
fasting, and to have abstained entirely from animal food. 

The Waldenses, though undoubtedly influenced by Catharist 
teaching, looked upon the sect as unorthodox, and did not acknow¬ 
ledge any connection. 3 They had themselves a clear starting-point. 
In the latter half of the twelfth century Peter de Waldo, a rich 
merchant of Lyons, translated the New Testament and some writings 
of the early Fathers into the Romance tongue, and, adopting the 
doctrine of apostolical poverty, sold his possessions and began to 
preach a simple gospel. A group of adherents soon gathered round 
him, from which other preachers went out in apostolic fashion, 
two and two. The Waldensians, or “ Poor Men of Lyons,” as they 
were sometimes called, spread over Southern France, Italy, and 
parts of Germany, and their numbers gave grave alarm to the 
ecclesiastical authorities. Contemporary chroniclers give a curious 
list of their chief errors, which were : the wearing of sandals 
“ like apostles,” the refusal to take oaths or to take human life on 
any ground, and the assertion that the sacraments could be adminis¬ 
tered by any believer. This last tenet, however, was certainly 


1 According to some the Bosnian heretics were refugees from France and 
Italy, survivors of the Albigensian persecutions of the thirteenth century. The 
early Crusaders considered that the “ Bulgari ” were all heretics. Hence from 
“ Bulgare ” came the term of vulgar abuse, bougre , which originally meant 
“ heretic.” So the German Ketscer (also = heretic) comes from the Italian 
“ Gazzari,” a corruption of Cathari. M. Emile Gebhart, Mystics and Heretics 
in Italy , p. 54, distinguishes the Paterini, as a local Milanese movement, from 
the Cathari. 

* “ Nor was the old traditional Church doctrine assailed by the Waldensians. 
They diverged only in respect of certain doctrines which bore upon practice. . . , 
The rejection of oaths, of service in war, of civil jurisdiction, of all shedding of 
blood, seemed to them, as to so many mediaeval sects, simply to follow from the 
Sermon on the Mount” (Harnack, History of Dogma , vi. 90 note). The Inquisition 
of Toulouse in the fourteenth century distinguished between “ heretics ” 
(i.e. Cathari) and “ Waldenses.” Gebhart, op. cit ., p. 58, identifies the Italian 
Waldenses with the “ humiliati.” 


THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND PEACE 25 

not part of the original doctrine, and does not appear to have been 
universally held at any time. Dr. S. R. Maitland, in his acute 
and critical book on the Waldenses, 1 quotes a treatise, On the Sects 
of Modern Heretics , by Reinerius Saccho ( circa 1254). lt ls 
included among the errors of the “ Poor Men of Lyons ” the belief 
that “ the Pope and all bishops are homicides on account of wars.” 
There is an interesting description of the manner in which heretics 
“ introduce themselves to the notice of the great.” “ The heretic 
draws a comparison between the circumstances of the Church and 
those of his sect ; saying thus . . . they [the ecclesiastics] fight and 
make wars, and command the poor to be killed and burned, to 
whom it is said, ‘ He that taketh the sword shall perish by the 
sword.’ ” The Crusade of 1208, and later persecutions, scattered 
the remnants of the Cathari and Waldensians far and wide. Some 
turned eastward, to Hungary and Bohemia. Waldensians joined 
the “ Bohemian Brothers ” (to be mentioned later) about the year 
1467. Others, possibly, reached England. But even in Provence 
the community lingered on in secret. A didactic Romance poem 
of Waldensian teaching, the Noble Lesson , is assigned by scholars 
to the early fifteenth century. Some of its verses teach pure non- 
resistance. 

The Old Law commands to fight against enemies and render evil for evil; 
But the New says, Avenge not thyself, 

But leave vengeance to the heavenly King, 

And let those live in peace who do thee harm; 

And thou shalt find pardon with the heavenly King. 

The Old Law says. Thou shalt love thy friend, and hate thy enemy; 
But the New says, Thou shalt no more do this; 

But love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you 

And pray for them who persecute you, and seek occasion against you ; 

That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven. 

The Old Law commands to punish malefactors; 

But the New says, Pardon all people, 

And thou shalt find pardon with the Father Almighty; 

For if thou dost not pardon thou shalt not be saved. 

From the end of the fifteenth century onwards the Waldensian 
communities which had taken refuge in the mountain valleys of 
Savoy were exposed to persecution and outrage at the hands of 
Catholic mercenaries at the order of the Pope and the Piedmontese 
rulers. Milton’s sonnet, “ On the late Massacre in Piedmont,” 
1 Maitland, Facts and Documents Illustrative o r . . . the Waldenses , 1832, 
pp. 400 foil. 


26 


INTRODUCTORY 


was evoked by one of these atrocities in 1655. The exact date 
at which the persecuted began to resist by force is doubtful, but 
from time to time the inhabitants of one of the valleys, maddened 
by their sufferings, rose to arms, when struggles ensued, conducted 
by both sides with every circumstance of atrocity. The best-known 
episode is the war in the French Alpine valleys at the end of the 
seventeenth century led on the Waldensian side by one of their 
pastors, Arnaud. 1 

At first efforts were made to win back the Waldensians to the 
Church by other methods than persecution. Innocent III, a wise 
and far-seeing statesman, about the time of the Crusade of 1208 
formed some “ Catholic Poor Men ” (or Waldensians reconverted 
to the Roman Church) into a brotherhood of preaching friars, 
allowing them freedom from oaths and military service, “ so far 
as this may be done without prejudice or offence to any and with 
the sanction of the secular arm.” Prejudice and malice seem to 
have prevented the development of the body, but the scheme has 
a curious resemblance to the Third Order founded a few years 
later by Francis of Assisi. These Tertiaries were to be laymen 
and women living according to a simple rule, which included a 
prohibition against wearing weapons or serving as soldiers. This 
was at a time when Italy was desolated by public and private war, 
when robbers swarmed on the high-roads, and duelling was already 
an obligation for a man of honour. u For nearly seventy years 
the Tertiaries kept their rule. Sometimes, in the war of town 
with town, the Italian podestas would call them to serve along with 
their fellows as soldiers to defend their native cities. But when 
they would not, the witness of their whole lives agreed with their 
refusal to be unfaithful to the command of Christ, and their fellow- 
townsmen had not the heart to punish as criminals the men whom 
they felt to be their best and most useful citizens.” 2 At last the 

1 The sympathy evoked in Protestant countries led the sufferers to put forward 
in the seventeenth century entirely unhistorical claims to a direct continuity of 
descent from the primitive Church. Waldo was forgotten, and the name Waldenses 
or Vaudois, derived from the Valles in which (it was supposed) the true faith had 
been kept pure and without addition from the early days of Christianity. In 
1658, George Fox urged his fellow Quakers to contribute to a general subscription 
raised in England for the relief of the Vaudois, but pointed the moral against 
all persecution in a letter to the Protector and his Government (Fox, Journal, 
8th edition, i. 435). 

* T. Edmund Harvey, “ St. Francis in History ” {Friends' Quarterly Examiner , 
January 1904). 


THE CHRISTUN CHURCHES AND PEACE 2 7 

rule was altered : by a Bull of 1289 Pope Nicholas IV allowed 
them to carry weapons for defence, and to fight “ in defence of the 
Church.” 

During the fourteenth century the first English voices are 
heard against war, evoked perhaps by the sufferings of the long 
struggle with France. Wycliffe’s study of the New Testament 
drew him away from the prevalent standards in civil and religious 
life. In more than one treatise he attacked war in vigorous terms. 
“ Lord, what honour falleth to a knight that he kills many men ? 
The hangman killeth many more, and with a better title. Better 
were it for men to be butchers of beasts than butchers of their fellow- 
men.” 1 These views were adopted by the Lollards, the spread 
of whose opinions through the work of “ poor preachers ” is curiously 
parallel to that of the earlier Waldensians. A Lollard petition to 
the Parliament of 1395, in stating their views, declared that “all 
wars were against the principles of the New Testament, and were 
but murdering and plundering the poor to win glory for kings.” 
One of the accusations against Oldcastle, their chief leader in the 
time of Henry IV, was his opposition to the French war. About 
1445, Reginald Pecock, in his quaintly named Repressor of Over- 
Much Blaming of the Clergy , mentions as a Lollard doctrine that 
war and capital punishment were unlawful. A late Lollard tract, 
The Sum of the Scriptures (which probably belongs to Tudor times), 
says : “ Men of war are not allowed by the Gospel, the Gospel 
knoweth peace and not war.” 2 f The Lollards were popularly 
supposed to be revolutionaries and conspirators (the same charge 
was brought against the early Quakers). Wycliffe had an undoubted 
influence upon Huss, possibly through members of the retinue which 
Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II, brought with her to England. 
But the Hussite wars, after the martyrdom of the reformer, were 
not peaceable fruits of his teaching. Yet one body, the Bohemian 
Brethren, or Unitas Fratrum , stood apart from the two main divi¬ 
sions of Hussites. They refused any kind of military service, and it 
was to them that the refugee Waldensians joined themselves. The 
Brethren spread into Poland and Moravia, but everywhere they 
endured bitter persecution, and in the Thirty Years’ War were 
almost extirpated. A remnant from Moravia settled in 1722 upon 
the estates of a pious nobleman, Count Zinzendorf, at Herrnhut 

1 Quoted in Arbiter in Council , p. 16. 

* Rufus Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion , p. 365. 


28 


INTRODUCTORY 


in Saxony. The Count soon joined the body, and by him they 
were again organized into a sect, or, as they preferred to consider, 
a branch of the Lutheran Church, known in Germany as “ Herrn- 
hiiter,” or “ Briider,” and in England and America as “ Moravians.” 
Their virtues and the important influence they have exerted in the 
cause of the slave, of foreign missions, and through Wesley and 
Whitefield, upon English religious life, are well known. They are 
still supposed to be principled against military service and war, but 
this was denied by English members in the Great War. According 
to Franklin (in his Autobiography) the Pennsylvian Moravians at 
Bethlehem took vigorous measure of defence after the massacre of 
their Indian co-religionists at Gnadenhiitten. 

While these pre-Reformation sects undoubtedly held peace 
principles, they came into collision with the Church on so many 
other points of doctrine and practice that this one does not seem 
to have been the cause of much persecution. 

At the dawn of the Reformation some of the most distinguished 
men of the New Learning were found on the side of peace. Luis 
Vives, the Spaniard, has been already mentioned. His greater 
friend Erasmus was one of the most eloquent and earnest exponents 
of the contradiction between war and Christianity. He opposed a 
projected war against the Turks with the remark that “ the most 
effective methods of vanquishing the Turks would be to let them 
see in our lives the light which Christ taught and expressed, to let 
them feel that we were not lusting for their dominions, nor thirsting 
for their gold, but seeking their salvation and Christ’s glory.” i 
Again : “War breeds war ; vengeance is repaid by vengeance. 
Let us now try the new policy of friendliness and goodwill.” 2 And 
again : “ Christians who defend war must defend the dispositions 
which lead to war ; and these dispositions are absolutely forbidden 
by the Gospel.” 3 But the more powerful sects produced by the 
Reformation did not include among their tenets any scruple against 
war. The history of Huguenots in France and of Lutherans in 
Germany, Scandinavia, and Holland contain many bloody pages. 
The peace doctrine was left to the despised Baptists, or Anabaptists 
as they were popularly called. There were many shades of belief 

* Epistle to Volsius, prefaced to Miiitis Christiani Enchiridion , ici8 . 

3 Querela pads. 

. , 3 His En g 1 «l' f™nd Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, declared that “ an unjust peace 
is better than the justest war.” 


THE CHRISTIJN CHURCHES AND REACE 29 

and practice among the early Baptists, but two facts stand out clearly. 
First, the wild spirits who ran riot in Munster in the year 1536 
were in no respect typical, though they succeeded in bringing the 
name of Anabaptist into a disrepute which it retained for more 
than a century. Secondly, the movement known as “ Anabap- 
tism,” which included such sects as the Schwenkfeldians and 
Huterites, 1 was not directly inspired by the sixteenth-century 
Reformers, but rather was in continuity with pre-Reformation 
bodies. It would, for example, be a hard matter to disentangle 
the mutual relations of Lollardry and Anabaptism. As in trade, 
so in religion, there was much intercourse betweeen England and the 
Netherlands. Anabaptists from Holland and Germany appear in 
England as early as the reign of Henry VIII, and they endured 
martyrdom at the hands of the Tudors. Persecution at home 
drove many to settle in England under Elizabeth, and, in turn, 
when William the Silent established religious liberty, the persecuted 
English Separatists took refuge in Holland. 

In 1530 an Ecclesiastical Commission found a sect holding 
“ divers heretical opinions ” such as the unlawfulness of war. 
“ Cristen men among themselves have nought to do with the 
sworde.” These may have been Lollards or Anabaptists, but it 
was an early English Anabaptist who was charged, among other 
heresies, with asserting: “ I am bound to love the Turk from the 
bottom of my heart.” 2 

John Smith (or Smyth), one of the most influential and learned 
of the first generation of English Baptists, who died in 1612, 
declared in his Confession that Christ called His flock “ to the 

1 The Schwenkfeldians were followers of Caspar Schwenkfeld, a Silesian noble¬ 
man. He joined the Reformation movement in 1525, but his “ Quaker ” views 
on the Sacraments and war drew down on him the hatred both of Catholics and 
Lutherans. His followers were greatly persecuted. In the early eighteenth century 
one remnant joined the Moravians, and another emigrated to Pennsylvania where 
a small Church still survives. The Huterites (led by Jacob Hunter) took refuge 
in Moravia about 1535. English Quakers found them at Pressburg in Hungary 
in 1661. Their general views were almost identical with the Mennonite Baptists, 
but they practised communism, and carried their peace principles to the point 
of refusing payment of war taxes. A few Churches founded by emigrants exist 
in South Dakota. 

» Barclay, Inner Life , p. 14. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion , 
pp. 387 foil. Elizabeth burnt two Dutch Anabaptists at Smithfield in 1575. 
Edmund Wightman, a “ Baptist,” was burnt for Unitarian opinions at Lichfield 
in 1612. There were migrations of Separatists from England to Holland from 
1593 to 1597* 1604 to 1606 (led by John Smyth), and in 1608. The last group were 
eventually the “ Pilgrim Fathers ” of the New World. 


INTRODUCTORY 


3 ° 

following of His unarmed and unweaponed life and of His cross¬ 
bearing footsteps.” Smyth was closely connected with the Dutch 
Mennonites, and during the early seventeenth century some of the 
English Baptist congregations were in rather loose union with the 
Dutch Mennonite Church. But a division soon arose between 
them concerning war and the use of arms, which was naturally 
intensified by the outbreak of the Civil War. Even after the 
Restoration, however, there were Baptist congregations who main¬ 
tained an objection to war, though the Friends considered them 
but lukewarm in their testimony. 1 

The Mennonites just mentioned were the most important and 
interesting of the sects into which the Continental Anabaptists 
developed. Menno Symons was a priest in West Friesland, where 
in 1535 there was a fierce persecution and massacre of Anabaptists. 
Menno was so struck by the courage and constancy of the martyrs 
that he began to inquire into their creed. In 1536 he appeared 
as a leader of the moderate party in their protest against the fanatics 
of Munster. Soon he had so stamped his personality upon the 
Church that it received his name. The Mennonites became estab¬ 
lished in Holland, France, Switzerland, and Germany. They 
practised adult baptism and silent prayer, opposed war, oaths, capital 
punishment, and a separate and paid class of ministers, and laid great 
stress upon integrity of lire and the practice of benevolence.2 These 
characteristics tempted some of their early historians to claim them 
as direct descendants of the Waldenses, and the same claim has been 
made for the Anabaptists in general. On this it has been said in 
a recent treatment of the subject 3 :—- 

* A little-known sect, the “ Family of Love,’ 1 founded by a Westphalian, 
Henry Nicholas, in Germany and England during Elizabeth’s reign, also opposed 
war and capital punishment. This body was neither Catholic nor Reformed, and 
members were permitted to attend the services of either Church (Barclay, Inner 
Life , pp. 25 foil., and references there given. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion , 
pp. 436 foil.). It died out in England during the Civil War. Barclay in his 
Apology (1676) rebukes those who oppose war (probably the Baptists) and yet take 
part in the public prayers and thanksgivings for victory. 

* The Mennonites are sometimes called “ Unitarian Baptists,” but Menno 
appears to have held the orthodox view of the Trinity, though he thought the 
term itself unscriptural (Barclay, Inner Life, p. 81). 

3 Encycl. Religion and Ethics , article “Anabaptists.” The Collegiants of 
Holland (Spinoza’s friends) in the seventeenth century were largely drawn from the 
Mennonites and held their views on war. Another Baptist sect, the Tunkers 
(i.e. “ Dippers ”), Dunkers, or Dunkards arose in Westphalia about the year 
1708. Persecution drove them to Pennsylvania ten years later. They now 


THE CHRIST 1 JN CHURCHES AND PEACE 31 

“The similarity in doctrines, spirit, and organization is so 
marked as almost to compel belief in some sort of historical suc¬ 
cession ; and yet the effort to trace this connection has not so far 
been successful. Moreover, several considerations militate against 
such a conclusion. (1) The Anabaptists themselves were not 
conscious of such connection, regarding themselves as the spiritual 
children of a renewed study of the Bible. (2) All their leaders, 
so far as their lives were known, came out of the Catholic Church. 
(3) They had little or no connection with older sects after their 
rise. These considerations render it probable that they, like the 
sects of the Middle Ages, are the offspring of a renewed Bible study, 
and that the similarity is the result of independent Bible study under 
similar circumstances and controlling ideas.” 

The testimony against war and oaths caused the Mennonites 
as much trouble as it did the Quakers later. In all other respects 
they made excellent and law-abiding citizens, but they were gradually 
driven out from each country that adopted compulsory military 
service. In Holland they early obtained complete exemption, but 
in the excitement of the Dutch Revolution, 1787-97, by which a 
short-lived Republic was founded, many abandoned their principles 
and resorted to arms. When the country was overrun by Napoleon 
the majority submitted to conscription, and the Churches who 
maintained their old principles gradually emigrated to Canada and 
the States. 1 

In France the sect mainly settled among the Vosges Mountains. 
They were exempted by Louis XIV, and protected from the con¬ 
sequences of the Edict of Nantes. In 1793 they petitioned the 
Assembly concerning military service, and received exemption from 
combatant duties, but were required to serve in hospitals and transport 
or to pay a commutation. The Committee of Public Safety, in 
granting the concession, declared : “ We have observed in this 

people a simple heart and sweetness of character, and we think that 
a good Government ought to enlist all such virtues for the public 
good,”—sentiments which were signed, amongst others, by Robe- 

number about 100,000 in the United States (where their peace principles were 
recognized by the law), and there are small bodies in Sweden and Denmark. 

1 The Quaker, Thomas Story, was told at Rotterdam in 1715 that the 
“ Menists . . . still keep up their old testimony against fighting and swearing, 
yet they are not so lively in worship or so near the truth as they once were ” 
( Journal , p. 520). In 1821, another Quaker, Thomas Shillitoe, found the testimony 
against war “ had quite fallen to the ground ” (Shillitoe’s Journal , i. 237). 


INTROD UCTORT 


32 

spierre. Napoleon and later Governments continued the exemption. 
The sect still existed in the year i860. 1 

Very early in their history some Dutch Mennonites were allowed 
by Sigismund, King of Poland, to settle in what is now East Prussia, 
where they enjoyed religious freedom in return for their skilful 
cultivation of the land. The sect spread and flourished, but in 
1723 Frederick William of Prussia threatened them with military 
service. So numerous an emigration to Pennsylvania and other 
parts of America was the result that the project was abandoned. 
In 1780 Frederick the Great confirmed their privileges. But 
soon the Prussian Government became alarmed at the increase 
in their numbers and in the amount of land held by them. In 1787, 
and again in 1801, regulations were imposed which were designed 
to check their growth. The consequence was a new emigration, 
this time to Russia, until the Government was again forced to make 
concessions. 2 They were exempted from military service during 
the war of 1813, and retained this privilege until the general con¬ 
scription law for the North German Confederation in 1867. By 
a Cabinet order of 1868 the Mennonites were given the choice of 
accepting non-combatant duties in the Army under the military 
oath or of emigrating. Opinion in the body was divided. Many 
emigrated, some accepted the compromise, while others, even in 
Prussia, maintained their testimony. The emigration to Russia 
already mentioned was due to that astute monarch Catherine II, 
who wished for emigrants to cultivate her new conquests, and found 
her opportunity in the Prussian religious difficulty. She granted 
the Mennonites free land and a charter of full religious liberty and 
exemption from military service. This charter was confirmed by 
her successor, Paul. For eighty years and more these Mennonite 
colonies flourished exceedingly, and their members were held in high 
estimation as good farmers and good citizens. The Quakers, William 
Allen and Stephen Grellet, visited the settlements round the Dnieper 
in 1819. William Allen, in his Journal , gives an attractive account 
of them, adding that a new migration was expected. “ The King 
of Prussia does not wish to part with them, as they are indeed among 
the very best of his subjects, but as they cannot bear arms the 

1 Vide article by W. Tallack in British Friend , 1900, p. 242, also Barclay, 
Inner Life, p. 610. 

3 The Mennonites seem always to have fared better than the small body of 
German Friends which arose in Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century. 
Vide post , Chapter XIV. 


THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND PEACE 33 

popular odium is so strong against them that they are glad to get 
away.” 1 

In the early seventies, however, the Russian Government passed 
a law of universal military service. At once the Mennonites pre¬ 
pared to emigrate, and some of the leading members had reached 
the United States before the Government intervened. General 
Todleben, the hero of Sebastopol, told the Czar that he was driving 
away his best agriculturists, and suggested a compromise. Military 
service would not be required of Mennonites called up if they would 
undertake to serve three years in the Forestry Department, and to 
learn ambulance work in case of need. As in Prussia, some accepted 
the offer (in this case, of course, the forestry work was civilian in 
character), but there was a large emigration to America during 
the years immediately succeeding the law. English Friends helped 
the poorer Mennonites to leave Russia. In the United States and 
Canada they were specifically exempted from military service. The 
Stundist bodies in Russia show marked traces of Mennonite influence. 2 
Two other Russian sects deserve notice. Allen and Grellet in 1819 
visited bodies of “ Molokans ” and “ Doukhobors ” near the Men¬ 
nonite settlements, and while finding much in common with the 
former, considered that the latter held unbalanced and dubious 
opinions. Fifty years later two Yorkshire Friends, Isaac Robson 
and Thomas Harvey, paid a visit of religious service to South Russia.3 
They too came into contact with the Molokans. One member 
who claimed to be more than a hundred years old gave the tradi¬ 
tional version of their origin. A century before, General TverchikoflF 
had been sent to London on a mission by the Empress Catherine. 
There he and one of his under-officers became Quakers. The 
General dared not reveal his change of mind, but the officer began 
to preach and to make converts. Catherine heard of the new sect, 

1 William Allen, Life, ii. 61 foil. An interesting modern account of the 
Russian body is in Hume, Thirty-five Tears in Russia, 1915, pp. 55 foil. 

J The Mennonites are now estimated at 250,000. These include : 

(1) The Dutch body, which has given up the war tenet. 

(2) Those in Prussia, South Germany, and in the States (descendants of 

South Germans) who leave it an open question, which in practice 
means, in conscriptionist countries, military service. 

(3) The largest body in Prussia, Russia, Canada, the United States, and 

a few hundred in Galicia—which maintains the old testimony 
0 vide Chapter XVIII, pp. 518-20 for the American Mennonites* 
attitude during the Great War). 

3 Report of visit (privately printed) 1867. In D. 

3 


1NTR0D UCTORT 


34 

and after inquiry declared that their principles were those of the 
Bible and they must be protected. Persecution was their lot, 
however, in later reigns. Their own name was “ Spiritual Chris¬ 
tians,” “ Molokans ” or “ Milk-eaters ” was a nickname derived 
from their non-observance of the fasts of the Russian Church. At 
that time (1867) they were exempted from military service, but 
had to pay heavily for the privilege. Their Quaker visitors thought 
their objection was not to actual war, but to the ikon worship and 
other observances inevitable in the Army. 

Almost the same story of their own origin is told by the 
Doukhobors. According to them a retired Prussian non-com¬ 
missioned officer (probably in Russian service) settled in a village 
in the Kharkoff district about the year 1740 and founded the sect. 
But Mr. Aylmer Maude 1 in his study of the Doukhobors doubts 
the tradition. Possibly it was borrowed from the Molokans, with 
whom the Doukhobors have at times had some connection. In 
any case the term “ Quaker ” has often been applied on the Continent 
to mystical sects having no connection with Friends. The advocacy 
of Tolstoy, and their wholesale emigration to Canada, have made 
the Doukhobors comparatively well known to the English public. 
Their peace tenets were a late development. When conscription 
was imposed on the Caucasus in 1887 they submitted, and did not 
resist service until 1895. Many Russians have adopted Tolstoyan 
views on war and force, but these do not form a separate sect. A 
number of these Tolstoyans were imprisoned or banished to Siberia 
for refusal to serve in the Great War. 2 

There is another Continental sect of more recent growth. The 
“ Nazarenes ” appeared in Hungary, Austria and Bohemia after the 
year 1845, and in thirty years’ time numbered several thousands. 
It is tempting to connect them with the Mennonites, whom they 
greatly resemble in their tenets, but they appear to have an inde¬ 
pendent and modern origin. One account naively remarks that 
“ it is not to the bearing of arms in itself which they object, but 

1 A Peculiar People—The Doukhobors. Mr. Maude also doubts the story of 
the success of their attitude of non-resistance in winning over the wild tribes of 
the Caucasus, after their banishment thither in 1841. But for this there seems to 
be more evidence. The help given to the Doukhobors by Friends is described 
in Chapter X. 

» Further details about these sects, some of which even call themselves “ Friends " 
or “ Quakers,” were given in the Friend , January 6, 1923, in an article partly 
based on a letter from Countess Olga Tolstoy. See also for the treatment of 
Pacifists in Russia, J. W. Graham, Conscription and Conscience , pp. 365-8. 


THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND PEACE 35 

the purpose of killing the enemy, which they regard as anti- 
Christian.” This opposition has brought on them much suffering 
and imprisonment in Austria and Hungary, though occasionally 
they have been allowed to give hospital work in lieu of military 
service. One Nazarene, Peter Zimbricht, of Vienna, was forced 
into the army in the war of 1866, and dragged from battle to battle 
with weapons tied upon him. At Koniggratz he was actually 
sentenced to death, but escaped the penalty. A branch of the sect 
arose in Serbia about the year 1875, and in that country they have 
endured frequent and severe imprisonment. Report has it that 
Nazarenes were shot for refusal to serve in the Great War, both in 
Hungary and Serbia, but complete information is not as yet available. 1 

After the adoption of conscription in the war by the 
United Kingdom, appeals to tribunals for exemption reminded the 
public that, in addition to the Friends, various smaller sects, such 
as the Christadelphians and the Seventh Day Adventists, which 
have arisen in the nineteenth century hold principles opposed to 
war. The Plymouth Brethren are content with an exemption 
from combatant service. This summary of the history of peace 
sects in the Christian Church may serve to show that the peace 
principle is generally held in common with some other very definite 
views on the obligations of Christianity. It may also remind us 
that (in the words of a recent study of religious thought) “ Quakerism 
is no isolated or sporadic religious phenomenon. It is deeply rooted 
and embedded in a far wider movement that had been accumulating 
volume and power for more than a century before George Fox 
became a 4 prophet ’ of it to the English people. And both in its 
new English, and in its earlier Continental form, it was a serious 
attempt to achieve a more complete Reformation, to restore primitive 
Christianity, and to change the basis of authority from external 
things, of any sort whatever, to the interior life and spirit of man.”* 

1 Details have lately been collected by J. W. Graham, Conscription and 
Conscience , pp. 354-7. Vide article on the “ Nazarenes ” in an extinct periodical, 
The Messiah’s Kingdom , 1889, and also an appendix to the Report oil. Robson and 
T. Harvey. The Society of Friends in 1889 sent an address of sympathy to some 
Nazarenes imprisoned at Belgrade, which reached them just as they were released 
(Proceedings of London Yearly Meeting , 1889, p. 77). 

1 Rufus Jones, Spiritual Reformers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries , 
p. 348. 






PART 1 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


Our forefathers and predecessors were raised to be a people in a time of 
great commotions, contests, and wars, begun and carried on for the vindica¬ 
tion of religious and civil liberty, in which many of them were zealously 
engaged, when they received the knowledge of the truth ; but through 
the influence of the love of Christ in their minds they ceased from conferring 
with flesh and blood, and became obedient to the heavenly vision, in which 
they clearly saw that all wars and fightings proceeded from the spirit of 
this world, which is enmity with God, and that they must manifest 
themselves to be the followers of the Prince of Peace, by meekness, humility, 
and patient sufferings.—Address of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to 
Friends in Pennsylvania, 1774. 


CHAPTER II 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY OF THE SOCIETY 
OF FRIENDS 
1643-60 

Throughout the sixteen centuries which separated the rise of 
the Society of Friends from the days of the Early Church the sects 
and teachers just described had maintained a witness for Christian 
simplicity in life and doctrine. At times the witness had been 
faintly uttered and almost unheeded, but it was never wholly silenced. 
It is impossible, however, to trace a direct connection between 
these earlier movements and the “ great openings ” which came 
to George Fox, the young Leicestershire shepherd, in the days of 
the Civil War. 1 Filled as he was with the conviction that his 
spiritual enlightenment was the immediate gift of God, he acknow¬ 
ledged no guidance from men or books. Yet, least of any sect, 
can Quakerism be understood apart from the religious and social 
conditions amidst which it came into being. It is not only to the 
personal experiences of George Fox, but to the general mind of 
England in his day, that we must look for an explanation of the 
rapid establishment and extension of the Society of Friends under 
the Commonwealth and the later Stuarts. 

In the years of struggle between Parliament and King, and in those 
which followed Charles’ execution, a hard Old Testament Calvinism 
was dominant. The Army was religious, the Government was 
religious, and religion was military and political, bringing the arm 
of flesh to reinforce the sword of the Spirit. Episcopalianism was 
in hiding, a current running underground, to reappear with gathered 
strength at the Restoration ; Puritanism, stern and forbidding, 

1 Fox certainly had a good deal of intercourse with Baptists during his six 
years (1643-9) of spiritual conflict, and many of his first followers came from 
that sect. 


39 


40 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


though from many aspects full of grandeur, ruled irf Church and 
State. Yet amid its rocks and precipices, where weak heads and 
hearts at times quailed, falling headlong into awful gulfs of pre¬ 
destined sin and reprobation, there rose in places clear springs of 
spiritual refreshment or the fiery breathings of spiritual ardour 
While Presbyterian and Independent wrangled for political supre¬ 
macy, little companies of “ Seekers ” met together to wait in silence 
for the divine teaching, and the Ranter and the Anabaptist, with 
stammering tongues and strange tremblings, strove to deliver their 
half-inspired, half-hysterical messages. “To be a Seeker,” wrote 
Cromwell himself, “ is to be of the best sect next to a finder ; and 
such an one shall every faithful, humble seeker be at the end. 
Happy seeker, happy finder ! ” 1 Fox, in the days of his early 
struggles, met at times with these little bands, 2 and many Seekers 
at last found rest for their souls within the Society of Friends, or, 
as William Penn expressed it, “ what people had been vainly seeking 
without , with much pains and cost, they by this ministry found 
within . . . the right way to peace with God.” 3 

The seed of Fox’s teaching fell upon prepared ground. But 
it would give a false impression, and be gravely unjust to the brave 
“ Publishers of Truth,” his friends and fellow-workers, to identify 
the teaching of the Society exclusively with one man’s utterances 
or to imply that he ever imposed a rigid body of doctrine upon the 
new sect. A detailed history of the beginnings of Quakerism 
does not fall within the scope of this study. It has been told by 
many writers, most recently and fully by W. C. Braithwaite, with 
first-hand knowledge and quaint simplicity by the Dutch Quaker, 
William Sewel ; 4 but to understand the basis of “ Friends’ ancient 
testimony against wars and fightings” it is necessary to consider 
the principle which inspired the life and thought of Fox himself 
and of the community which gathered round him. The early 
pages of his Journal tell of his vain efforts to gain help and comfort 
from the creeds and teachers of the day. At last (in the year 
1647), “when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, 
so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what 
to do : then, O ! then I heard a voice which said, ‘ There is one, 

1 Cromwell to Bridget Ireton, October 25, 1646. 

* Fox, Journal , 8th edition, vol. i., ch. i, ii. 

3 Ibid.y Preface, p. xxvi. 

4 W. C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism , 1912. William Sewel, 
History of the Quakers , 1722. 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 41 

even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition ’ ; and when 
I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. ... For though I read 
the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God ; yet I knew Him 
not but [except] by revelation, as he who hath the key did open, 
and as the Father of Life drew me to his Son by his Spirit.” 1 Soon 
it became clear to him that the revelation was not for him alone : 
“ With and by this divine power and Spirit of God, and the light 
of Jesus, I was to bring people off from all their own ways, to Christ, 
the new and living way, and from their Churches, which men had 
made and gathered, to the Church in God, the general assembly 
written in heaven which Christ is the head of : and from the world’s 
teachers, made by men, to learn of Christ.” 2 

This revelation, the light of Christ within, is the central truth 
of Quaker teaching. But to Fox and the early Friends it was no 

Sudden blaze . . . spread o’er the expanse of heaven, 

which in one flash unveiled every detail of the road before them. 
It was rather a clear ray shed on the immediate path, a principle 
to guide in each new perplexity. It is a strange misreading of 
Friends’ principles which accuses them of too literal reliance upon 
certain passages of Scripture. The words of Fox are echoed with 
slight variations by many others in the first generation of the Society, 
“ These things I did not see by the help of man nor by the letter, 
though they are written in the letter, but I saw them in the light 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and power.” 3 
Hence it was not primarily by the literal interpretation of certain 
verses in the Sermon on the Mount that their testimony against 
wars and fightings arose, but by an inward convincement that such 
practices were contrary to the Spirit of Christ. 

In the years from 1643 to I ^ 47 ? when Fox was passing through 
fierce temptations and inward struggles, his friends were ready 
with suggestions for his cure. Tobacco, psalm-singing, and matri¬ 
mony were all proposed, but Fox never learned to smoke, his heart 
was too heavy to allow him to join in songs, and as to marriage— 
“ I told them I was but a lad, and must get wisdom.” “ Others ” 
(thinking, perhaps, that a drastic change of thought and occupation 
was necessary) “ would have had me into the auxiliary band among 

1 Fox, Journal , 8th edition, i. n, 12. 

3 Ibid., pp. 36, 37. 


42 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


the soldiery, but I refused ; and I was grieved that they proffered 
such things to me being a tender youth.” 1 

“ Tender,” in Fox’s vocabulary, means “ responsive to spiritual 
influence,” and it may seem natural that his soul should shrink 
from the confusion and bitterness which prevailed at the outbreak 
of the Civil War. Yet, perhaps, of all wars that between King 
and Parliament was the one into which many of the combatants 
on either side flung themselves with the most selfless devotion to 
political and religious ideals, and to which they were most fervently 
urged by their ecclesiastical guides. “ I have eaten the King’s 
bread,” said Sir Harry Verney to Hyde, “ near thirty years and I 
will not do so base a thing as to forsake him. I choose rather to 
lose my life.” But (he added), “ I have no reverence for the bishops 
for whom this quarrel subsists.” Bellum episcopate , the war was 
called in bitterness, but presbyter as well as priest drove men to 
the battle. “ Curse ye Meroz ” (the Puritan ministers cried from 
their pulpits) “ because they went not forth to help the Lord against 
the mighty ” ; and as young William Dewsbury heard them, he 
too was willing to fling away his life on behalf of another King 
than Charles Stuart. 2 “ We are both on the stage,” wrote a 
Parliamentary leader to his Royalist friend, “ and we must act the 
parts assigned us in this tragedy. Let us do it in a way of honour, 
and without personal animosities.” 3 In England at least the 
contest was singularly free from the cruelty and rapine which are 
usually inseparable from war, and which marked with indelible 
stains the struggles of the time between rival religious systems on 
the Continent .4 None the less, Fox saw too clearly the essential 
nature of war to condone it even under such conditions. But it 
was not until the strife had dragged on for nine years and had led 
to the fateful scene at Whitehall and to the horrors of Drogheda 
and Wexford that he made his first recorded pronouncement on the 
relations of Christianity and war. 

1 Fox, Journal , 8th edition, i. 5, 6. As to tobacco, there is a curious 
story printed first in Camb. Journal , i. 44, how Fox, in 1652, put a proffered 
pipe for a moment to his mouth, to prove that he was no false ascetic, but had 
unity with the creation. 

3 Dewsbury, Works, pp. 45 foil. 

3 Sir William Waller to Sir Ralph Hopton. 

4 The chief exceptions are to be found in the doings of Rupert’s troops at 
Bristol and Birmingham, and, on the Parliamentary side, in Fairfax’s treatment of 
the Colchester garrison. In Ireland, unhappily, the war was fought on a different 
level. 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 43 

In the autumn of 1650, three years after he began to preach 
his new revelation, the Derby justices had imprisoned him for six 
months as a blasphemer. During his term of imprisonment his 
patience and integrity won him many friends. In this same autumn 
and winter Charles Stuart the younger was rallying his forces for a 
last venture, and Cromwell’s Commissioners were filling up the 
gaps in the Parliamentary Army by raising local militia under the 
provisions of the Militia Act passed in July 1650. It is evident 
from Fox’s experience that the Commissioners took a large view 
of their powers. Thus he tells the story : “ So Worcester fight 
came on, and my time being out of being committed six months to 
the house of correction : and then they filled the house of correc¬ 
tion with persons they had taken up to be soldiers ; and then they 
would have had me to be captain of them to go forth to Worcester 
fight and the soldiers cried they would have none but me. So the 
keeper of the house of correction was commanded to bring me up 
before the Commissioners and soldiers in the market-place : and 
there they proffered me that preferment because of my virtue (as 
they said) with many other compliments : and asked me if I would 
not take up arms for the Commonwealth against the King ? But 
I told them I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took 
away the occasion of all wars : and I knew from whence all wars 
did rise, from the lust, according to James his doctrine. And still 
they courted me to accept of their offer, and thought I did but com¬ 
pliment with them, but I told them I was come into the covenant 
of peace, which was before wars and strifes was $ and they said 
they offered it in love and kindness to me, because of my virtue, 
and suchlike : and I told them if that were their love and kindness 
I trampled it under my feet 

“Then said they, Take him away, gaoler, and cast him into 
the dungeon among the rogues and felons : which they then did 
put me into the dungeon among thirty felons in a lousy stinking 
place without any bed : where they kept me almost a half year, 
unless it were at times : and sometimes they would let me walk 
in the garden, for they had a belief of me that I would not go 
away.” 1 

1 Camb. Journal, i. n, 12. A remarkable fact in this episode is the 
offer of a command to an untrained man. Fox says more than once on other 
occasions : “ The postures of war I never learned.” Apparently, the first offer 
was some time before the battle, and the Commissioners may have had plans for 
training their pressed men. 


44 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

A few weeks later the attempt was renewed, but neither dungeon 
nor felons had shaken Fox. “ Now the time of Worcester fight 
coming on, Justice Bennet sent the constables to press me for a 
soldier, seeing I would not voluntarily accept of a command. I 
told them that I was brought off from outward wars. They came 
down again to give me press-money, but I would take none. Then 
I was brought up to Sergeant Holes, kept there a while and then 
taken down again. After a while the constables fetched me up 
again, and brought me before the Commissioners, who said I should 
go for a soldier ; but I told them that I was dead to it. They said, 
I was alive. I told them, where envy and hatred are, there is 
confusion. They offered me money twice, but I would not take 
it. Then they were angry, and committed me close prisoner, 
without bail or mainprize.” 1 

Throughout his life Fox’s physical strength and moral influence 
were recognized, and early in this imprisonment he had shown his 
power to control his unruly gaol-fellows. Moreover, the magis¬ 
trates, he tells us, were “ uneasy ” about him and wished to get 
rid of him. It was not surprising, therefore, that the new militia 
levies seemed to offer a way of escape, and that neither magistrates 
nor Commissioners could understand the ground of the strange 
Quaker’s refusal to serve. As little could they understand the 
spirit of the letter that he addressed to the magistrates, from his 
close confinement. “ You profess to be Christians, and one of 
you 3 a minister of Jesus Christ ; yet you have imprisoned me, who 
am a servant of Jesus Christ. The Apostles never imprisoned any, 
but were imprisoned themselves. Take heed of speaking of Christ 
in words, and denying him in life and power. O friends, the 
imprisoning of my body is to satisfy your wills, but take heed of 
giving way to your wills, for that will hurt you.” 3 

This first Quaker testimony against war struck the keynote 
for the future. Fox did not linger over the circumstances of the 
particular war, nor the interpretation of a particular text, but he 
relied on the contradiction between the spirit of war and the spirit 
of Christ. Fighting, like persecution, was the negation of Chris¬ 
tianity—■“ denying Christ in life and power.” Like the Apostle 
John, Fox could not reconcile hatred of the brother on earth with 

i Fox, Journal , 8th edition, i, 72, 73. This second attempt is not given 
in the MS. from which the Camb. Journal is printed. 

1 Colonel Barton. 3 Journal , i. 73. 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 45 

love of the Father in heaven. There was also another marked 
resemblance between the attitude of Fox and that of his later 
followers. He obviously carried on no peace propaganda among 
the other conscripts and made no attempt to impose his own con¬ 
victions upon them. The essence of early Quakerism lay in freedom 
to follow the inward guide, who would in due season lead the 
pilgrim into all truth : there was no desire on the part of the human 
teacher to force his hearers to travel at his own pace or to tread 
precisely in his footprints. Thus the Quaker “ position ” on war, 
as will be seen, came to be adopted at different times as an individual 
conviction by the first members of the Society. 

Fox was released from Derby gaol in the early winter of 1651. 
The next eight years were for him and other Friends times of 
apostolic journeyings throughout Great Britain, punctuated by 
long and painful imprisonments—for blasphemy and heresy, for 
disturbance of the peace, and for sedition. 1 During these years the 
teaching spread far and wide, and the number of Friends increased 
with such rapidity that after the Restoration thousands were cast 
into gaol on an unjust suspicion of complicity in the Fifth Monarchy 
rising. Amongst the converts were many soldiers of all ranks, 
chiefly drawn from the Baptist and Independent members of the 
Parliamentary Army, although a few Royalist conversions are also 
recorded. From the scattered allusions in contemporary Quaker 
writings a list can be made of more than ninety soldiers or ex-soldiers 
who became Friends, and no doubt there were many others of whom 
no records remain. 2 These ninety include some of the leaders 
of the Society, James Naylor, Richard Hubberthorn, William 
Dewsbury and others, fellow-preachers and fellow-labourers with 
Fox. Quakerism at this early stage laid down no laws or regula- 

1 Among the Swarthmore MSS. (i. 40) (in D) there is a copy of a Justice’s 
warrant against Thomas Rawlinson, a Friend, in 1656, which opens thus : “ To all 
mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, constables, tithing-men and all other officers whom these 
may concern $ Whereas there was an order issued from this bench for the apprehend¬ 
ing of all Rogues and Vagabonds and in particular for the apprehending of all those 
who pass up and down the country under the name of Quakers as disturbers of 
the peace of the present Government and as underminers of the fundamentals of 
religion. . . .” The copyist comments : “ This Thomas Rawlinson was going 
to visit the prisoners at Launceston in Cornwall, and they took him up by the 
watch and the constable took twenty shillings from him in the night, that he was 
carrying to the prisoners, and this was the wickedness of the Presbyterians in 
Oliver’s days.” 

1 Appendix A, List of soldiers and ex-soldiers who became Friends. 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


46 

tions for its members, but it is abundantly clear that it soon proved 
impossible for a Quaker to remain a soldier. 1 

William Dewsbury’s experience presents some features of 
peculiar interest, since his spiritual development ran parallel to that 
of Fox, yet on entirely independent lines. He, too, in his perplexed 
search for truth, turned for help to ministers and preachers, “ who 
only added to my sorrow, telling me to believe in Christ, I knew 
not where he was.” Their exhortations drove him into the Par¬ 
liamentary army, where he joined with a remnant that claimed 
to fight for the Gospel, but found among them as much ignorance 
of the Gospel as in those he had left. Gradually his mind was 
turned from painful seekings after outward observances to the 
Light Within. “ And the word of the Lord came unto me and 
said, Put up thy sword into thy scabbard, if my kingdom were of 
this world when would my children fight. Knowest thou not that, 
if I need, I could have twelve legions of angels from my Father ? 
Which word enlightened my heart, and discovered the mystery of 
iniquity, and that the kingdom of Christ was within ; and the 
enemies was within, and was spiritual, and my weapons against 
them must be spiritual, the power of God. Then I could no longer 
fight with a carnal weapon, against a carnal man, for the letter, 
which man in his carnal wisdom had called the Gospel, and 
had deceived me ; but then the Lord . ; . caused me to yield in 
obedience, to put up my carnal sword into the scabbard and to leave the 
Army.” 2 

This experience came to Dewsbury in 1645, some years before 
his first meeting with Fox, but he gladly accepted the Quaker 
message in 1651, at the same time as James Naylor, formerly 
quarter-master under General Lambert. Some soldier-converts 
were soon brought to a position in which they could no longer 
fight ; and others found that for other reasons life in the army 
became impossible for them. The story of the unnamed soldier 
who visited Fox in Derby gaol in 1650-1, throws some light on 
the difficulties both of Quaker soldiers and non-Quaker officers. 
He was “ convinced ” by Fox, and began to preach in his regiment. 
Unluckily his Colonel (Barton) was also a preacher (probably an 
Independent) and one of the justices who had committed Fox to 
his prison. Thus, when the new convert declared that his officers, 

1 W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism, p. 519. 

2 Dewsbury, Works, pp. 45-55. 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 47 

through their treatment of Fox, were “ as blind as Nebuchadnezzar,” 
they were not unnaturally annoyed. Hence, when before the 
battle of Worcester two Royalists came out from the King’s camp 
with a challenge to any two Parliamentarians, the Quaker was one 
chosen to meet them. His companion was killed, but he drove 
the Royalists back without firing a shot, as he told Fox. But when 
the battle was over, “ he laid down his arms and saw to the end of 
fighting ”—another instance of individual conviction. 1 * * 4 Freedom 
of preaching in all ranks was a question upon which Cromwell 
and his officers differed,* but even making allowance for the laxer 
discipline of the day, it was natural that officers should have 
disliked privates with a turn for drawing unflattering Scripture 
parallels. 

In 1654, when Cromwell assumed the Protectorate, the oath 
of allegiance was tendered to all soldiers and others employed under 
Government. This, or rather their own principle against all 
swearing, cut short the military career of several Quakers, including 
John Stubbs, who had been convinced when Fox was a prisoner at 
Carlisle in 1653.3 Fox relates how some soldiers, who had inclined 
towards Quakerism, nevertheless took the oath, and how shortly 
afterwards on a march into Scotland they were fired at by a garrison 
in mistake for the enemy, and several lost their lives, “ which was 
a sad judgment.” 4 This period was one of great testing for soldier- 
Friends 5 probably it was only the cessation of campaigning after 
the battle of Worcester that permitted them to remain even as long 
as some did in the Army. From his gaol at Northampton in October 
1655 William Dewsbury wrote to Margaret Fell of Swarthmore, 
the protectress of all Friends in distress, telling her how their friend 
Captain Bradford had quartered his regiment in the town on its 
march to London, but when he visited Dewsbury and the other 

1 Camb. Journal , i. 13. * Carlyle, Cromwell , Letter clxii. 

3 A characteristic story of another Carlisle soldier of this period is told by 

John Whiting in Persecution Exposed 1715, p. 120. William Gibson with some 
other soldiers from the garrison intended to amuse themselves by breaking up a 
Quaker meeting. The preaching of Thomas Holmes, however, had such an 
effect on Gibson “ that he stept into them meeting near Thomas, to defend him, 
and bid any that durst offer to abuse him.” He soon joined Friends, left the 
garrison and became a shoemaker. After three years of “ waiting upon God 
in silence ” in this peaceful occupation, he proved an effective and powerful preacher, 
defending Quakerism by his life and words, and no longer by the strength of his 
arm. 

4 Camb. Joumaly i. 142 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTXJRT 


48 

prisoners the gaoler churlishly refused to admit him, asking him 
whether he had a command in the Army. “ He answered him : 
Whether I have it matters not in this thing, for this I declare to 
thee, what command soever I have in the Army my sword shall 
not open the gaol doors, and if thou do not open them I shall not 
come in. And in meekness and patience he stood until the Lord 
commanded the gaoler’s spirit, that he let him come in.” For 
the remainder of the regiment’s stay the prison was frequented by 
officers and soldiers who joined in the Friends’ meetings. 1 

The Society was already feeling anxiety for the welfare of its 
members. In 1656 Fox wrote to Friends exhorting them to help 
and support any soldiers that might be turned out of the Army “ for 
truth’s sake.” a The advice was repeated three years later by a 
meeting at Horsham of Friends—Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hamp¬ 
shire. In 1656 also one of the earliest “General” or “Yearly” 
Meetings to settle the affairs of the Society was held at Balby in 
Yorkshire. Its Epistle, signed by William Dewsbury and others, 
and sent out to be read in Friends’ meetings, bears witness to the 
growing care for a consistent behaviour among Friends. Three of 
its recommendations seem to glance at the Army difficulties. They 
run as follows : 

“ 13th. That care be taken as any one is called before outward 
powers of the nation, that in the light obedience to the Lord be 
given. 

“ 14th. That if any be called to serve the Commonwealth in 
any public service, which is for the public wealth and good, that 
with cheerfulness it be undertaken, and in faithfulness discharged 
with God, that therein patterns and examples in the thing that is 
righteous ye may be to those that are without. 

“ 15th. That all Friends who have calling and trade do labour 
in the thing that is good in faithfulness and uprightness, and keep 
to the yea and nay in all their communications ; and that all who 
are indebted to the world do endeavour to discharge the same, that 
nothing they may owe to any man but love one another.” 3 

The outward powers of the nation were in no mood to deal 
tenderly with scruples of conscience. Fox noted in his Journal 

1 Swarthmore MSS., iv. 141. 

2 Fox, Epistles, 1698, p. 94. Letters of Early Friends , p. 284. 

3 Beginnings of Quakerism, pp. 411-14. 


49 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 

for 1656 that 44 O. P [Oliver, Protector] began to harden,” * and 
that several Quakers lost their commissions in the Army. The 
next year there was a drastic purge, particularly among the forces 
in Scotland and Ireland, where Quakerism had begun to make 
its way. It found little welcome from the authorities. The Quaker 
neglect of rank and title was held to be subversive of military dis¬ 
cipline, and the refusal to take the oath of allegiance was suspected 
as the cloak of designs to restore Charles Stuart or to set up the 
kingdom of the Saints. Monk in Scotland and Henry Cromwell 
in Ireland, both in person and through their subordinates, cleared 
the regiments of Friends. Monk assured the Protector (perhaps 
not yet completely “hardened” and mistrustful of such stern 
measures) that the Quakers 44 will prove a very dangerous people 
should they increase in your Army, and be neither fit to command 
nor to obey, but ready to make a distraction in the Army and a mutiny 
upon every slight occasion.” a Colonel Daniel at Perth reported 
in a similar strain the sad case of his Captain-Lieutenant Davenport. 

44 My Captain-Lieutenant is much confirmed in his principle of 
quaking, making all the soldiers his equal (according to the Levellers’ 
strain) that I daresay in a short time his principles in the Army shall 
be the root of disobedience. My Lord, the whole world is governed 
by superiority and distance in relations, and when that is taken 
away, unavoidably anarchy is ushered in. The man is grown so 
besotted with his notions, that one may as well speak to stone walls 
as to him ; and I speak it from my heart, his present condition is 
the occasion of great trouble to me. He hath been under my 
command almost fourteen years, and hitherto hath demeaned himself 
in good order, and many of these whimsies I have kept him from, 
but now there is no speaking to him. . . There was one example 
last day when he came to St. Johnston [Perth] ; he came in a more 
than ordinary manner to the soldiers of my company, and asking 
them how they did, and the men doing their duty by holding off 
their hats, he bade them put them on, he expected no such thing 
from them. My Lord, this may seem to be a small thing, but 
there lies more in the bosom of it than every one thinks, and though 
it’s good to be humble, yet humility would be known by the demon¬ 
stration thereof, and where all are equals I expect little obedience 
in government.” 3 

1 Camb. Journal , i. 263. * Thurloc, State Papers , vi. 136. 

3 Ibid., vi. 167. 

4 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

Davenport was cashiered by Monk, towards whom he displayed 
the same principle of equality, refusing “ hat-honour ” and using 
the familiar “thou.” With him in 1657 several other officers 
and many soldiers left the Army. 1 Among the Swarthmore Manu¬ 
scripts at Devonshire House is the copy of a document signed by 
some of these ejected soldiers, disclaiming the derisive name of 
Quaker, while admitting “ quaking and trembling ” which testified 
to the power of God.* There are not many traces of distinctly 
anti-war testimony, although at Aberdeen one Cornet Ward, who 
was inclining towards Quakerism, declared that, if he were con¬ 
vinced, “ he purposed not to make use of any carnal sword, but was 
resolved for that thing to lay down his tabernacle of clay.” “ I 
fear,” wrote Major Richardson, “ that these people’s principles will 
not allow them to fight if we stand in need, though it does to receive 
pay.” 3 

Besse, writing with special reference to Ireland, gives a fair 
summary of the general position. There were many in the Army, 
he says, “ who came to be convinced of the truth gradually, and 
began publicly to declare against the vices and immoralities of 
others, and were sensible of the corruptions of the teachers in those 
times, and bore their testimony against them. This their zeal 
for virtue and true religion often exposed them to the resentment 
of their officers and others, who hated reproof, so that some of these 
faithful monitors were imprisoned, others cashiered and turned 
out of the Army. And divers of them, as they became further 
enlightened refused to bear arms any longer, and became able ministers 
of the truth, and publishers of the gospel.” 4 Given a strict dis¬ 
ciplinarian in command and a zealous Quaker in the ranks, an 
explosion was bound to result sooner or later from their contact, 
and it is strange that many of the converts did not realize earlier 
the difficulties of their position. Some always cherished a certain 
pride in their past service and a friendly feeling for their old com- 

1 Camb. Journal, i. 308. 

3 Swarthmore MSS. } iv. 237, see Appendix B. Testimony of the 
Soldiers. 

3 Thurloe, State Papers, vi. 145, 146. William Caton wrote to Fox in 1659 
after a visit to Scotland, “ that few soldiers at that time came to meetings, excepting 
some few officers who did decline from Monk, and for the most part . . . were 
loving to Friends ; for many there was that threw in their commissions while I 
was there and several were displaced, and great overturnings there was among 
them” [Swarthmore MSS., iv. 268). 

4 Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers , edition 1753, vol. ii. Ireland, 1656. 


5i 


the early testimony 

rad^i In the troubled days between the death of Cromwell and 
the Restoration, many Quakers, some of them ex-soldiers, addressed 
pamphlets of earnest exhortation to the Army, and one or two drew 
a connection between their own expulsion and the present difficulties 
of Presbyterians and Independents. 

l n the Nav y> at a tlme when Blake was gaining fresh renown 
ror England on the seas, difficulties of conscience were more urgent. 
The press-gang was busy, sweeping men on board the ships-of-war 
On February 25, 1655/6, Captain Willoughby wrote to the 
Admiralty Commissioners from Portsmouth, complaining of the poor 
quality of recruits, men of all trades but seamen, which tends to 
nothing but to multiply expense. The pressed men are “the 
gatherings of the south part of Sussex, sent by four justices of the 
peace.” The collection is reminiscent of FalstafFs ragged regiment, 
“a tinker, quaker, two glass-carriers, hatter, chairmaker, and a 
tanner with his boy, seven years old, and so the Mayor of South¬ 
ampton supplies at all times.” 2 Whether this pressed Quaker spread 
his principles in the Navy or not, they had certainly made headway 
there some months later. Captain Foster of the Mermaid, in 
October 1656, forwarded to the Commissioners the resignation of 
his master-gunner. “He have not acted these two months but 
have altogether confined himself to his cabin, and have given out 
to our master-carpenter that no power shall command him to fire 
a gun as that from thence blood might be spilt, his tenets obliging 
him thereunto : the which myself with others do find to come 
nearest to those which are called Quakers, for his carriage towards 
me and others is without any outward respect, and from a spirit 
of delusion, as to the denying of ordinances and visible authority.” 
The worthy captain, like Colonel Daniel in Scotland, evidently 
wished to be rid of a perplexing subordinate, for he added : “ I 
earnestly desire that he may have his will as that I may discharge 
him with all speed.” 3 The infection spread, however, for in April 
1657 Captain Marryot reported to the Commissioners that Thomas 
Shewed, late boatswain of the Discovery and an Admiralty agent 
at Bristol, had turned Quaker and refused to swear in a case where 
his witness was required .4 

1 Joseph Fuce in A Visitation by Way of Declaration, 1659 (D. Tracts 95, 37), 
says : “ I was for many years a private soldier, corporal, and serjeant in the times 
of the late wars.” 

* Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655-6, p. 489. 

3 Extracts from State Papers relating to Friends , p. 14. 

4 Ibid., p. 27. 


5* 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


In the same month another gunner, from scruples of conscience, 
wished to be released from his employ. It is not certain that Richard 
Knowlman, of the Assistance frigate lying in the Downs, was a 
Quaker, but his letter makes it probable. He addressed one of the 
Commissioners (whose name is lost) because he was reputed to be 
more favourable to tender consciences than his colleagues and would 
not be offended by the omission of flattering titles. Knowlman’s 
plea has a rough eloquence of its own. “ Friend, I have served 
this Commonwealth by land and sea very faithfully, to the loss of 
my limbs, ever since the year ’forty-one, and am willing to continue 
in this Commonwealth’s service so far forth as I •may be profitable 
unto it upon some other account than I am at present, not that 
I desire to be in a higher place. ... I shall desire thee as soon 
as it may be that thou wilt think of some other employment for 
me : for I am not very free to continue much longer in this : for 
I desire but a livelihood for I and my wife and children, though 
it be but a mean one. So the Lord Almighty be thy director and 
preserver and that thou mayest once come to feed of the true bread 
of life which will be a continual satisfaction unto thee when all 
the pomp and glory of the world will pass away.” 1 It is tempting 
to believe that Knowlman had read the Epistle from the General 
Meeting at Balby, already quoted, but there is no direct evidence 
that he was a Quaker, nor does any record survive to show whether 
the busy Commissioner found time to provide him with a new and 
more innocent post. The next year, in a record of Friends’ suffer¬ 
ings presented to Cromwell, two Friends in prison at Winchester, 
Daniel Baker and Anthony Milledge, are each described as lately 
a captain of a ship-of-war for the State.* Daniel Baker became 
the owner of a merchant vessel and a leading Friend. 

But the instance of Friends’ peace principles in the Common¬ 
wealth Navy of which the fullest and most interesting record sur¬ 
vives is that of Thomas Lurting. This Friend, in his old age, 
published his experiences under the title The Fighting Sailor turned 
Peaceable Christian ,3 with the express object of commending to 
others the silent waiting upon God which had been his own guide 
through life. “For as silence is the first word of command in 

1 Extracts , p. 27. 

2 Ibid., pp. 45 foil. 

3 The Fighting Sailor turned Peaceable Christian : Manifested in the Convince - 
ment and Conversion of Thomas Lurting, with a Short Relation of many Great Dangers 
and Wonderful Deliverances he met withal. 1710. 


53 


THE EJRLT TESTIMONY 

martial discipline, so it is in the spiritual ; for until that is come 
unto, the will and mind of God concerning us cannot be known 
much less done.” 

Born in 1632, at fourteen years of age he was pressed into the 
wars in Ireland, then fought by sea against Dutch and Spaniards, 
and by 1657 was boatswain’s mate upon the Bristol frigate. There 
he had the oversight of the crew of two hundred men ; one of his 
duties was to see that they were present at the ship’s worship and 
to compel the unwilling to attend. A few who met in Quaker 
fashion for silent worship he beat and maltreated for their obstinacy. 
At Blake’s attack on Santa Cruz, Lurting played a gallant part, 
and his vivid narrative is used by historians as a “ source ” for that 
battle. His mind, naturally religious, was affected further by 
several hairbreadth escapes from death, and, as he grew dissatisfied 
with the official worship of the ship, he prayed earnestly for guidance. 
But the first thought that truth might be found among the despised 
Quakers startled him. “For the reasoning part got up. What, 
to such a people, that both priests and professors are against ? What, 
to such a people that I have been so long beating and abusing, and 
that without just cause ? Death would be more welcome.” The 
very form of the protest showed that the battle was half won, and 
he soon reached the position that “ whether Quaker or no Quaker, 
peace with God I am for.” He confided in one of the Friends, 
who received him lovingly, but his first attendance at their little 
meeting caused a great stir on board, calling forth remonstrances 
from both chaplain and captain. The former said : “ Thomas, 

I took you for a very honest man and a good Christian, but am 
sorry you should be so deluded,” while the captain stood by, “ turning 
the Bible from one end to another, to prove the Quakers no 
Christians.” 

Their conduct, however, during a severe epidemic on the ship, 
changed the captain’s opinion, and he soon placed great confidence 
in them. 1 “When there was any fighting in hand he would say, 

‘ Thomas, take thy friends, and do such and such a thing.’ They 
proved indeed the hardiest men on the ship, but refused to take 
any plunder. Being come to Leghorn, they were ordered to 
Barcelona to take a Spanish man-of-war. Lurting’s ship opened 
fire on the castle, and Lurting occupied himself with one corner 

1 This quotation is borrowed from the summary of Lurting’s story in W. C. 
Braithwaite’s Beginnings of Quakerism , pp. 521-2. 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


54 

of the place, the guns of which had found the range of the ship. 
He was on the forecastle, watching the effect of his shot, when it 
suddenly flashed through him : ‘ What if thou killest a man ? ’ 
Putting on his clothes, for he had been half-stripped, he walked 
on the deck as if he had not seen a gun fired, and when asked if 
he was wounded, said : ‘ No, but under some scruple of conscience 
on the account of fighting,’ though at that time he did not know 
that Quakers refused to fight. That night he opened out his new 
convictions to his friends, who said little, except that, if the Lord 
sent them well home, they would never go to it again. Soon after 
one of them went to the captain and asked to be discharged, as he 
could fight no longer. The captain, a Baptist preacher, said he 
should put his sword through any man who declined fighting in 
an engagement, and after further words beat the man with his fist 
and cane. The time of trial came a little later, when the ship was 
cruising off Leghorn, and had cleared for action with a vessel bearing 
down on them, supposed to be a Spanish man-of-war. Lurting 
and his friends drew together on deck and refused to go to their 
quarters. The lieutenant went to the captain and reported: 
‘ Yonder the Quakers are all together, and I do not know but they 
will mutiny, and one says he cannot fight.’ The captain, in a fury, 
dragged Lurting down to his quarters and drew his sword on him. 
Then the word of the Lord ran through Lurting : ‘ The sword of 
the Lord is over him, and if he will have a sacrifice, proffer it him.’ 
Thereupon he stepped towards the captain, fixing his eye with 
great seriousness on him, at which the captain changed countenance, 
turned himself about, called to his man to take away his sword, and 
went off. The ship they expected to fight proved to be a friendly 
Genoese, and before night the captain sent a message excusing his 
anger.” When Lurting returned to England, he entered the 
merchant service, but, as will appear, his peaceable principles were 
several times put to a severe proof. 

Nor was it only in the Army and Navy that the peace testimony 
of Friends led them into conflict with authority. The Militia 
Acts of Cromwell and his Parliaments proved a heavy burden. In 
1649 and 1650 Parliament had re-established the county militia, 
and it was under the latter Act that George Fox suffered at Derby. 
In 1655 Cromwell appointed new Militia Commissioners for the 
English and Welsh counties, upon whom rested the duty of raising 
a force. The horses, arms, and money required were to be obtained 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 55 

from Royalist estates, and used to equip the well-affected, who 
were formed into regiments and trained. Those who refused to 
train were to be fined £20, and the obstinate imprisoned. 1 The 
policy of mulcting Royalist estates was soon abandoned, but the 
militia was maintained throughout the Protectorate, and heavy 
fines “for not sending a man to serve in the train-bands” soon 
became a common form of Quaker suffering. The earliest known 
instances are found in records for fines and distraints in kind at 
Colchester in 1659,2 but it is almost certain that these were not 
isolated examples. After the Restoration, when Friends noted 
their sufferings with great accuracy, these fines are very frequent 
in all parts of the country. No doubt there were some backsliders 
like Thomas Ayrey, who “ could suffer nothing for truth, for when 
like to suffer for keeping Christ’s command in not swearing, he 
truckled under and took an oath ; when like to suffer for truth’s 
testimony against fighting and bearing outward arms, he consented 
to take arms ” ; 3 but the great majority stood as firm as Richard 
Robinson of Countersett, Wensleydale, who had a faithful testimony 
“ against bearing arms or finding a man for the militia, for he was 
all along charged with finding a man, but always kept very clear, 
and never after his convincement would pay anything directly or 
indirectly, but suffered for the same by fines and distresses, frequently 
encouraging other Friends to stand faithful.” 4 

In the troubled days of 1659, when the Commissioners were busy 
raising new troops, Justice Anthony Pearson, still nominally a 
Friend, was a Commissioner in the North ,5 and in Bristol seven 
Friends who were chosen for the office were in a strait how to act, 
desiring Fox’s counsel. 6 “ He told them : ‘You cannot well 
leave them, seeing ye have gone among them ; so keep in that 
which presses and grinds all down to the witness, the power of God ; 

1 Gardiner, Commonwealth and Protectorate , iii. 148-9, 171-2. Cal. State 
Papers , Dom 1655, Preface, p. viii. 

3 Besse, Sufferings , i. 194. 

J First Publishers of Truth, p. 266. 

4 Ibid., p. 314, also p. 308. 

5 Pearson, who lived in Durham, was also a magistrate for Westmorland, 
and was convinced in 1652-3 on the bench at Appleby, at the trial of Naylor and 
Howgill. After the Restoration he returned to the Established Church, and 
died in 1665. 

6 Alexander Parker to Fox, Swarthmore MSS., iii. 143. Parker says : “ I 
have had a great weight on my spirit about it. I see very little, yet something 
there may be in it. I can neither persuade them to it, nor dissuade them from 
it.” 


56 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

and therein you will have freedom and wisdom and liberty to declare 
yourselves over the contrary part that would rule.’ But he warned 
Friends against running into places.” 1 

From Cardiff Francis Gawler wrote to Fox, January 26, 
1 659/60 : 2 “I wass disired by my brother, who is a Jestes, John 
Gawler, who hath Receued a Commission Come Dowen from 
ffleetwoode, to be Lefteniente Cornell to one Boushey Mancell 
of this Conty, who is to raise a Regement of Malisa foote, and if 
thow sesete aney thing in the theinge that hee should not medell with 
it ; and if thow arte free, it will be very much unto him to vnder- 
stand a word from thee. His Coronell is a louinge man to frinds, 
and is very disierus to haue frinds in his Regemente, and my brother 
is verey Redy and willing to prefer frinds to offeces verey much, 
bute frinds are not free to medell with it, only Mathew Gibon 
hath partly Ingaged to bee a Captan (and Another a privat Souldger) 
of whom we are tender, knowing hee hath noe bade ende in it, but 
thinkes he may be sarvesabell for truth in it.” But this tentative 
proposal was sternly met by Fox, in whose handwriting the letter 
is endorsed, “ which g f forbad and said it was Contraye to over 
prensables, for ovr wepenes are spiritall and not Carnall.” 

In 1664 a paper was drawn up on behalf of Fox and other 
Friends imprisoned in Lancaster Gaol, which states that the Com¬ 
mittee of Safety in 1659 offered him the post of Colonel, “but he 
denied them all and bade them live peaceable.” This paper also 
describes three of the imprisoned Friends, Thomas Waters, William 
Wilson, and James Brown, as faithful Royalists, who had suffered 
for the King in battles, wounds, prisons, and sequestrations, and 
“ never had a penny of pay to this day.” 3 Another Royalist Quaker 
appears in Sewel’s pages, where it is told how, in later years, 
Christopher Bacon of Somerset was taken from a meeting at 
Glastonbury and brought before the Bishop of Wells, who called 
him a rebel for meeting contrary to the King’s law. Christopher 
retorted : “ Dost thou call me rebel ? I would have thee know that 
I have ventured my life for the King in the field when such as thou 

1 W. C. Braithwaite, Second Period of Quakerism , p. 18, quoting from 
Swarthmore MSS., vii. 157. This letter confirms the fact that some London Friends 
were serving, “ for they were, when I was out of town, put in commission.” Fox 
adds : “ There is little but filth and much dirt and dross to be expected among 
them.” 

2 Swarthmore MSS., iv. 219. The document is given in its original spelling 
as a very perfect example of the phonetics of the time. 

3 Camb. Journal, ii. 48-52. 



THE EARLY TESTIMONY 57 

lay behind hedges.” By this (says Sewel) he stopped the Bishop’s 
mouth, who did not expect such an answer, and soon dismissed 
him. 1 

Not all the precautions and warnings of Fox and others, however, 
could save Friends from falling under the suspicions of the shifting 
Governments of that strange year 1659, anc * it was the general 
misunderstanding of the Quaker position which led Friends to 
publish more clear and comprehensive statements of their peace 
principles. Before considering these, a short account must be given 
of the general attitude of Fox and his adherents to the Common¬ 
wealth Government. 

The overthrow of parliamentary government by Cromwell in 
1 653 g ave a f res h impetus to conspiracies, both Cavalier and 
Republican, against his power. He lived for nearly six years longer, 
and died at last in his bed ; but throughout those years plots were 
unceasing, and his life was in constant danger. As is usual in times 
of unrest and treachery, all assemblies, whether religious or secular, 
whether for business or pleasure, were regarded by the Govern¬ 
ment with suspicion, and often prohibited beforehand or dispersed 
by bands of soldiers. Quaker meetings (which, indeed, were at 
times frequented by wild spirits, Levellers, Ranters or Fifth Monarchy 
men) were not exempt ; Fox was arrested at Whetstone in Leicester¬ 
shire and carried to London, where he was told that Cromwell 
would be satisfied by a signed promise “ that he would not take 
up a sword against the Lord Protector, or the Government as it 
is now.” 3 In response Fox drew up a document^ the theological 
implications of which were sharply canvassed and criticized in later 
times. From Cromwell’s point of view the essential passage was 
that in which Fox proclaimed his mission “ to stand a witness against 
all violence and against all the works of darkness, and to turn people 
from the darkness to the light and from the occasion of the magis¬ 
trate’s sword. . . . With the carnal weapon I do not fight, but 
am from those things dead.” He subscribed his name as one “ who 
to all your souls is a friend . . . and a witness against all wicked 
inventions of men and murderous plots.” Another document filled 
with fervent spiritual exhortation was also conveyed to the Pro¬ 
tector, whose interest was sufficiently aroused to make him wish 
for an interview with the new teacher. 4 Fox was summoned to 


1 Sewel, History , p. 682. * Camb. Journal , i. 161. 3 Appendix C. 

4 For the letter and interview, vide Camb. Journal , i. 161-5, 167-8. 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


58 

Whitehall before the time of the morning levee, and set forth at 
length his belief in a free ministry inspired by the Spirit of Christ. 
Cromwell listened patiently, at times interjecting that “ it was 
very good ” or “ truth,” but at last the room became crowded and 
Fox took his leave. As he was turning away, Cromwell caught 
him by the hand and said, with tears in his eyes : “ Come again to 
my house, for if thou and I were but an hour a day together, we 
should be nearer one to the other. I wish thee no more ill than I 
do to my own soul.” Fox characteristically replied by a warning to 
listen to the voice of God and to beware of hardness of heart. After 
he had withdrawn he received the Protector’s message that he was 
free and might go where he would. There were Friends and 
sympathisers with Friends in Cromwell’s own household, and the 
Protector on several occasions intervened to check the zeal of local 
authorities. 1 Even in 1658, when many Friends were in prison 
on various counts, Oliver and his Council sent down advice to 
local magistrates, “ in dealing with persons whose miscarriages 
arises rather from defects in their understanding than from malice 
in their wills, to exercise too much lenity than too much severity.” 3 
In this first peace document, as definitely as in his speeches at 
Derby, Fox stated his abhorrence of all war and of the employment 
of force and violence for political and religious ends, but he now 
made the further claim that part of his mission was to bring others 
to the same peaceable state. He recognized, though within strict 
limits, the power of the “magistrate’s sword” (that is, the civil 
authority) in preserving order within the State ; but that sword, 
too, was to pass away with the occasion for it, as all men were 
turned from evil to follow the inward light. It must be remem¬ 
bered that the line of demarcation between the civil and the military 
power was blurred almost out of recognition in the days of the 
Protectorate. Soldiers were often put upon police duty, and it was 
in that capacity that they were ordered to disperse Friends’ meetings 
and to arrest Fox and others. In this paper Fox repeats to “ soldiers 
that are put in that place ” (of maintaining civil order) the advice 
of John the Baptist 3 given to the Roman soldiers, who themselves 
were first and foremost policemen, upholding the law and govern¬ 
ment of Rome in Palestine. The text has been described as “ the 

1 He protested in vain against the barbarous punishment inflicted by Parliament 
on James Naylor in 1657. J 

* Extracts , p. 34. 3 Luke iv. 14. 



THE EARLY TESTIMONY 59 

epitome of the good policeman’s character.” 1 In the following 
year, 1655? when Friends were beginning to suffer on account 
of the oath of allegiance, Fox wrote again to the Protector, re¬ 
emphasizing the argument that a magistrate’s duty was not to coerce 
men s consciences, but to put down open and notorious evil . 3 

A declaration against the use of weapons was apparently made 
a test against other suspects. John Lilburne, doughty champion 
of political equality and sufferer for his beliefs, had been lying in 
gaol first in the Channel Islands and later in Dover Castle. Here 
he came into contact with Friends, and his restless, quarrelsome 
spirit found help in their peaceable teaching. 3 Cromwell, who 
always treated him with some respect, heard of his new leanings, 
and offered to release him if he would sign a promise never to draw 
a sword against the existing Government. At first Lilburne, 
although he knew of Fox’s declaration, refused, “ because he did 
not perfectly approve that point of self-denial.” In time his insight 
grew clearer, and he published, in May 1655, a paper declaring 
his adherence to “ the savouriest of people called Quakers,” and 
that “ I am already dead, or crucified, to the very occasions and 
real grounds of outward wars and carnal sword-fightings and fleshly 
bustlings and contests ; and that therefore confidently I now believe, 
I shall never hereafter be a user of a temporal sword more, nor a 
joiner with them that do so.” But the old Lilburne was not, in 
truth, quite dead, for he was careful to explain that this declaration 
was not intended to satisfy “ the fleshly wills of my great adver¬ 
saries ” nor his “ poor, weak, afflicted wife,” but to deprive the said 
adversaries of any excuse for continuing his imprisonment. Probably 
he was somewhat surprised and disappointed when Cromwell 
accepted the declaration and set him free. He remained faithful 
to Friends’ principles, and on his death in 1657 be was buried in 
Quaker simplicity. 4 

The difficulties of Friends in the last years of the Protectorate 
have already been described, but when Cromwell’s death removed 
the controlling hand from the affairs of the nation their perplexities 
increased amidst the general unsettlement and confusion. Yet 
Fox and other Friends continued to journey up and down the 

1 Arbiter in Council, p. 518. 

3 Camb . Journal, i. 192-4. 

3 In the paper quoted he says that in Dover Castle, “ I have really and 
substantially found that which my soul hath many years sought diligently after.” 

4 Sewel, History , Book III. 


6 o 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


country, encouraging meetings already established and settling up 
new ones, and although their gatherings were often broken up by 
troops of soldiers armed with justices’ warrants, Fox’s Journal tells 
of “glorious, powerful, heavenly meetings.” 1 * * 4 Early in 1659 
Sir George Booth stirred up a Royalist insurrection in Cheshire 
which caused general alarm. Some Quakers, or old soldiers with 
Quaker leanings, prepared to join the forces led against him by 
Lambert. The leaders of the Society were greatly troubled by 
this backsliding, and Fox, for weeks at a time, was overcome by 
deep depression seeing “ how the powers was plucking each other 
in pieces.” * He published several earnest exhortations to “ all 
Friends everywhere ” to keep out of plots and fighting or any inter¬ 
ference in matters political The Devil, he wrote emphatically, 
is the author and cause of wars and strife : “ all that pretend to 
fight for Christ are deceived ; for his kingdom is not of this world, 
therefore his servants do not fight. Fighters are not of Christ’s 
kingdom, but are without Christ’s kingdom. . . . All such as 
pretend Christ Jesus, and confess him, and yet run into the use of 
carnal weapons, wrestling with flesh and blood, throw away the 
spiritual weapons. . . . Live in love and peace with all men, 
keep out of all the bustlings of the world ; meddle not with 
the powers of the earth ; but mind the kingdom, the way of 
peace.” 3 

It was probably the enlistment of these pseudo-Quakers that 
gave rise to the rumours which reached the Royalist Secretary 
Nicholas, in the autumn of 1659. He had heard (he wrote to 
the French Court) that the impious rebels in England were arming 
madmen, for three regiments of Quakers, Brownists and Anabaptists 
were being raised in London, under the command of Vane, Skippon, 
and “ White, a famous Quaker from New England.” 4 Events, 
however, moved steadily towards the restoration of the monarchy : 

1 Camb. Journal ’ i. 340, 354. * Ibid., 341. 

. 3 For these letters > vide Camb. Journal , i. 334. Journal, 8th edition, 

1. 448-51. Fox, Epistles (1698), pp. 137, 145. 

4 Extracts , p. 116 (State Papers, Dorn., J, Foreign Correspondence, Flanders, 
vol. 32). ^ White is a name unknown in early Quaker history. The name 
“ Quaker,” however, as a term of reproach was applied to other sects, and the 
fighting Quakers may have been Fifth Monarchy men. This may also be the 
explanation of a letter from Desborough (April 8, 1660) directing the last attempt 
in Wales and the West at organized resistance to the Restoration. “Let the 
Quakers,” he writes, “ have the knottiest piece, for they are resolute in performance 
though but rash in advising” (Extracts, p. 116, State Papers, Dom., ccxx. 70). 


6i 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 

as Fox travelled through the country he found that “great fears 
and troubles was in many peoples and a looking for the King’s 
coming in and that all things should be altered, but I told them 
the Lord’s power and light was over all and shined over all.” * The 
Army was in a state of grave disorder, the soldiers openly taking 
sides for King or Commonwealth,* and both parties found some 
relief for their feelings in disturbing Friends’ meetings. Monk 
had entered London in February 1659/60, and his old friend and 
fellow-soldier, Richard Hubberthorn, appealing to him, obtained a 
brief and emphatic order, which was of some service. 

St. James, tyk of March. 

I do require all officers and soldiers to forbear to disturb the peace¬ 
able meetings of the Quakers, they doing nothing prejudicial to the 
Parliament or Commonwealth of England. 

George Monk.3 

But Monk’s authority could not prevail everywhere and in many 
places the trouble continued. 4 The Commonwealth of England 
was soon to pass away ; in April the Convention Parliament met, 
the first act of which was to recall the King. In that troubled 
and excited spring Fox travelled in the West from Bristol to 
Gloucester, and thence by Tewkesbury to Worcester. “ I never 
saw the like drunkenness,” he noted, “ as then in the towns, for they 
had been choosing Parliament-men.” 5 These travelling Quaker 
missionaries roused the suspicions of the authorities at a moment 
when no man could trust his neighbour, and the new Government 
was scarcely established before Friends felt its heavy hand. At 
the end of April 1660, as William Caton and Thomas Salthouse 
journeyed from Yorkshire, they found “all was on heaps after 
the apprehending of John Lambert.” The Quaker meetings they 
held brought about their arrest, with that of other Friends. They 
were treated fairly and, as they could give a satisfactory account 
of themselves, allowed to proceed on their way. Others were not 

1 Camb. Journal , i. 347. 

a W. Caton, who travelled in Scotland in the winter of 1659, wrote to Fox that 
many officers there had thrown up their commissions, and others had been displaced, 
and “ great overturnings there was among them ” ( Snjoarthmore MSS., iv. 268). At 
Gloucester, Fox found “ part of the soldiers were for the King, and another part 
for the Parliament ” {Camb. Journal , i. 352). 

3 Swarthmore MSS., iii. 141. Letters of Early Friends, 79. 

4 At Balby the regular troops protected the Yearly Meeting against the 
militia soldiers who wished to break it up {Camb. Journal, i. 353-4.) 

5 Camb. Journal, i. 352. 


62 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


so fortunate. A few days later Salthouse reported several arrests 
in various parts of the country. “ The Cavalier Commissioners, of 
the new militia serve to apprehend Friends and deliver them to 
the cruel magistrates (so called), as men who gather tumultuous 
assemblies.” 1 

Fox was the chief sufferer. In May 1660 (the exact date is 
uncertain) constables entered the friendly asylum of Swarthmore 
Hall, arrested him, and carried him off to await trial at Lancaster.2 
During the journey next day the encounter with a body of Friends 
on the high road threw his guard into a panic, and they gathered 
about him, crying out : “ Would they rescue him ? Would they 
rescue him ? ” Fox, to reassure them, called out, “ Here is my 
hair, here is my back, here is my cheek, strike on ! ” which assuaged 
their anger. At Lancaster he was brought before Justice (formerly 
Major) Porter, who inquired : “ Why I came down into the country 
in that troublesome time ? I told him, to visit my brethren. And 
he said, we had great meetings up and down, and I told him we 
had so, but I said, our meetings ,were known throughout the nation 
to be peaceable.” After some more fencing, Fox was committed 
to Lancaster Castle on the grounds (as he discovered with much 
difficulty, for a copy of the warrant was withheld from him) that 
“ he was a person suspected to be a disturber of the peace of the 
nation, a common enemy to his majesty our Lord the King, a chief 
upholder of the Quakers’ sect, and that he with others of his fanatic 
opinion have of late endeavoured to raise insurrections in this part 
of the country to the imbruing of the nation in blood.” Apparently 
no witnesses were called in support of these charges, and as soon 
as Fox learned their terms he drew up a dignified refutation, relating 
how he had been arrested in 1654 upon a similar charge and how 
Cromwell had accepted the statement of his peaceable principles. 
He says twice with emphasis : “ The postures of war I never 
learned,” and retorts that the term “ fanatic ” is more applicable 
to the “ mad, furious, foolish ” spirit that relies on force and per- 

* Swarthmore MSS., i. 320, iii.17* In iii. 136, 146, 170, are some interesting 
letters and testimonies of Alexander Parker, who was imprisoned at this time 
In the first, an address to the King, he savs : “ The peace of the King and all the 
people of England that is in Christ Jesus I am firmly bound to keep and not to 
disturb. And likewise, all the good and wholesome laws of England which are 
grounded upon truth and equity, which are according to the laws of Christ 

the 0 ™* 6111 and am b ° Und ^ be SU ^ eCt t0 them and C not 3 break nor infringe* 

* For the whole account of this episode, see Camb. Journal, i. 358-84. 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 63 

secution than to the Quakers. In another letter, addressed per¬ 
sonally to Major Porter, he reminded that gentleman of certain 
episodes in his previous career as a Parliamentarian which, in his 
new flush of loyalty to the house of Stuart, he would have preferred 
to have forgotten. 1 That magistrate was in no very happy frame 
of mind, for, hearing that Margaret Fell and other Friends had 
appealed directly to the King on Fox’s behalf, he had gone to London 
himself, where he had the ill luck to find that several of those in 
close attendance on the King were men whose houses and estates 
he had plundered during the Civil War. They were not backward 
in reminding him of this, and he hastily returned home, “ blank 
and down.” 

The Friends working for Fox, amongst them Ann Curtis (whose 
father, Robert Yeamans, Sheriff of Bristol, had been hung as a 
Royalist in 1643), succeeded in influencing the King, and obtained 
a writ for the removal of the case to London. The Lancaster 
authorities, however, raised so many technical objections that Fox 
remained some time longer in prison. As usual, he was not idle, 
but issued many letters and papers, one to encourage Friends who 
were troubled by the change of Government, and another to the 
King, surely the strangest petition ever sent by a prisoner awaiting 
trial : 3 

“ Charles, thou came not into this nation by sword, and not 
by victory of war, but by the power of the Lord. Now if thou do 
not live in it, thou wilt not prosper, and if the Lord hath shewed 
thee mercy and forgiven thee and thou dost not shew mercy and 
forgive, the Lord God will not hear thy prayers nor them that 
pray for thee. And if thou do not stop persecution and persecutors, 
and take away all laws that do hold up persecution in religion, but 
if thou persist in them and uphold persecution, they will make thee 
as blind as all that have gone before thee, for persecution was ever 
blind.” 

The reaction from Puritan rule had already set in, and Fox 
urges the King to deal sternly with “ drunkenness, oaths, pleasure, 
May-games with fiddlers, drums, trumpets, and set-up Maypoles 
with the image of a crown on top,” or else “ the nation will quickly 
turn to Sodom and Gomorrah.” 

1 For example: “Where had that wainscot that he ceiled his house with? 
Had he it not from Hornby Castle ? ” 

* Camb, Journal , i. 361. 


6 4 


THE SEFENTEENTH CENTURT 


If Charles ever read the paper, he probably felt some idle 
admiration for one who could so plainly speak his mind. Margaret 
Fell, who studied his character to some purpose during her frequent 
audiences, wrote to Fox that the Presbyterian leaders, who still 
hoped to guide Charles’ policy, were so bitter against Friends that 
she believed they over-reached themselves and unwittingly influenced 
the King towards toleration. “ The man is moderate, and I do 
believe hath an intent in his mind and a desire to do for Friends, 
if he knew how and not to endanger his own safety. He is dark 
and ignorant of God, and so anything fears him, but we have gotten 
a place in his heart that he doth believe we will be true to him.” 1 

In October 1660 Fox was allowed by the Sheriff of Lancashire 
to travel to London with a few Friends, unguarded and carrying 
a copy of the charges against him. The trial took place before 
the Lord Chief Justice, Foster, and two other judges, and was 
fairer and more orderly than most Quaker trials of the time. When 
the charge of “ imbruing the nation in blood, and raising a new 
war” was read, the judges lifted up their hands in horror or 
surprise. “ Then,” says Fox, “ I stretched out my arms and said, 
I was the man that that charge was against, but I was as innocent 
as a child concerning the charge, and had never learnt any war- 
postures. And did they think that if I and my faculty had been 
such men as the charge declares that I would have brought it up 
with one or two of my faculty against myself? For had I been 
such a man as this charge declares, I had need of being guarded 
with a troop or two of horse.” No witnesses appeared against Fox, 
as Major Porter wisely remained in the North, and on October 25, 
1660, he was set free. 

Indeed, at first the Restoration seemed to offer hopes to the 
suffering Quakers. In the Declaration of Breda, Charles had 
promised liberty to tender consciences, and during the first months 
of his reign several hundred Friends were included in the numbers 
released from prison in accordance with the Declaration.* Several 
members of the Society had deserved well of the King by loyal 
service to his father or himself .3 Richard Hubberthorn, through 

1 Camb. Joumaly i. 373. 

* Others, however, were imprisoned on other counts. 

s A Dorset Quaker, Richard Carver, in 1651 carried Charles through the 
water to the little fishing-smack in which he escaped to France. Besse quotes, 
under the year 16&4, a petition from a Staffordshire Quaker, William Corbett, 
which he presented to the King in Windsor Park. He claimed a hearing on the 


THE EJRLT TEST 1 M 0 NT 65 

his acquaintance with Monk, obtained an audience with Charles, 
who, with his usual interest in novelties, questioned him closely 
on the doctrines and practice of the sect. As he dismissed him, 
he declared, “ None should molest the Quakers, on the word of 
a King, so long as they lived peaceably.” The interview was 
published by Friends as a pamphlet, 1 several times reprinted in crises 
when “ the word of a King ” had snapped asunder like rotten wood. 
Charles was not naturally cruel, and the Quakers amused him, 
while they were hated by his own enemies, the Presbyterians. All 
this predisposed him in their favour, and on several occasions he 
showed a careless interest in the fortunes of individual Friends. 
But, as Margaret Fell had seen, he would never put himself to 
personal inconvenience or endanger his popularity in the cause of 
justice, and a few months after his accession his hand was forced by 
an outburst of fanaticism. 

The Fifth Monarchy men were political and religious extremists 
who throughout the Protectorate had reviled Cromwell and his 
friends with wild bitterness. The study of prophecy had turned 
heads never, seemingly, very steady, and they believed that the 
fourth great world monarchy was drawing to its end, to be succeeded 
by the Fifth Monarchy, the rule of Christ and the Saints. The 
Fifth Monarchists identified themselves with these elect, while 
they were more than suspected of attempts to hasten, by the murder 
of the Protector, the coming of the expected millennium, and they 
had even attempted a rising in the spring of 1657. The Govern¬ 
ment they detested did in truth crumble away, but a few months’ 
experience made it clear to them that the reign of the Saints was 
not to be found in the restored Court at Whitehall. On January 6, 

1660/1, their rebellion broke out in London. It was never for¬ 
midable, being the work of a handful of men, but it threw the Court 
and Parliament into a panic out of all proportion to the danger. 

ground of his services in the Royalist Army, “ in the General Lord Capel’s own 
troop, wherein I sustained these wounds, namely, I was shot in my leg at the 
siege of Wem in Shropshire, and wounded in my left arm at the garrison of the 
Lord Cholmeley’s house in Cheshire, and also cut and dangerously wounded in 
my head, to the caul of my brain, with a pole-axe at a skirmish at Stourbridge 
in Worcestershire, and at the same time the thumb of my right hand was cut off.” 

Since those stormy days he had been led to join the “ peaceable people ” called 
Quakers, and now applied to the King for relief from the heavy distraints he had 
suffered under the laws against conventicles. Charles characteristically “ read 
part of it, and then delivered it to another person to read the rest for him,” but 
Besse adds that apparently Corbett obtained no relief. 

1 Something that lately passed in discourse between the King and R.H. In D, 

5 


66 


THE SEVENTEENTH [CENTURY 

Fox, who had remained in the south, was in London at the 
time. His Journal tells the story as it affected Friends : 

“ It was said there was something drawn up that we should have 
our liberty [of worship] only it wanted signing. And on the first 
day there was glorious meetings, and the Lord’s truth shined over 
all, and his power was set over all. And at midnight, soon after, 
the drums beat and they cried “ Arms ! Arms ! ”, for the monarchy 
people were up. And I got up out of bed and in the morning 
took boat, and came down to Whitehall stairs and went through 
Whitehall, and they looked strangely upon me. And I went to 
the Pall Mall and all the city and suburbs were up in arms, and 
exceeding rude all people were against us.” 1 Neither mob nor 
magistrates stayed to make much distinction between Quaker and 
Fifth Monarchist. Not only were many Friends roughly handled 
in the streets, but when they met for worship the next Sunday 
wholesale arrests were made. Fox was taken on the Saturday night 
(January 12th) and searched for arms. The searcher was an old 
acquaintance, so Fox replied that he knew well enough that he 
never carried even pocket-pistols, which were the ordinary travelling 
equipment of the day. He was detained a few hours at Whitehall, 
but released at the instance of Esquire Marsh, one of the King’s 
attendants, who was often of great service to Friends. 

There was a general belief that Friends were in the plot 
(although Fox says that the ringleaders at their execution denied 
that any Friends were concerned). Soon the prisons were full, 
and all Quaker meetings forbidden. None the less, they continued 
to be held as long as any Friends were left unarrested. 2 

The State Papers bear abundant testimony to the blind panic 
which prevailed. A West Riding magistrate, William Lowther, 
writes to State Secretary Nicholas on January 12th that Quakers 

1 Camb. Journal, i. 386-7. 

3 A Committee of both Houses reported in December 1661, after an inquiry 
into the plot, “ that at Huntingdon many met under the name of Quakers, that 
were not so, and rode there in multitudes at night, to the great terror of his Majesty’s 
good subjects” (Cobbett, State Trials, vi. 114). The State Trials also quotes 
from An Historical Account of all the Trials and Attainders for High Treason, the 
assertion that the plotters intended to allow “ such Quakers as agreed with them 
in their millenary notions, as nearest to their sort of enthusiasm, the honour of 
partaking with them.” Few troubled to distinguish Quakers from other new 
sects. Baxter wrote : “ The Quakers were but the Ranters turned from horrid 
profaneness and blasphemy to a life of extreme austerity ” (Reliquia Baxteriana, 
i. 77). See the account of these imprisonments, W. C. Braithwaite, Second Period 
of Quakerism, pp. 9-14. 


THE EARLY TESTIMONY 67 

have held great assemblies in his neighbourhood attended by divers 
officers of horse and foot, where strange doctrines were broached 
tending to the overthrow of the Government. In his anxiety he 
brought the matter before Wakefield Quarter Sessions, and encloses 
their order of the previous day forbidding such gatherings. 1 Three 
days later a Wilts magistrate reports that he has arrested nearly 
thirty Quakers and other desperate fellows, former soldiers of the 
Parliament. Most of them (surely not the Quakers ?) have taken 
the oath of allegiance, but he still mistrusts them, and proposes to 
exact in addition security for their good behaviour. 2 Next week, 
in the East Riding, Sir Robert Hildyard carried on the work. “ In 
searching for arms there was found at Risum [Rysome] in Holder- 
ness, in a Quaker’s house, divers papers wherein it doth appear 
that they have constant meetings and intelligence all over the 
kingdom, and contributions for to carry on their horrid designs, 
though masked under the specious pretence of religion and piety. 

I have sent you copies of two of them that you may see it is a real 
truth. They also keep registers of all the affronts and injuries 
that is done to any of them, when, where, and by whom. There¬ 
fore it doth appear they are an active, subtle people, and it is a great 
mercy that their designs did produce no more mischief to this 
kingdom. We shall be careful to prevent their unlawful meetings 
and to break the knot of them in this town and county.” 3 

A few weeks later a careless messenger dropped a letter from 
one Quaker to another on the high road near Cockermouth. By 
ill-luck it came into the hands of two zealous local magistrates. 
In the letter John Dixon told Hugh Tickell, a Cumberland Friend, 
what collections were decided upon at the last monthly meeting, 
and begged him to send the contribution from his local meeting 
with all speed. Both men were arrested, and underwent separate 
examinations, but the most searching questions could not unearth 
a conspiracy. The magistrates, however, wrote to Under-Secretary 
Williamson at Whitehall, enclosing the ill-fated letter, with the 
suggestion that it should be shown first to the Earl of Carlisle and 
the local members of Parliament, and then to the Privy Council, 
and advice sent down how they were to act. “ Admit their explana¬ 
tion thereof be truth, and they be as harmless and innocent people 
as they pretend to be, yet their continued meetings against the King’s 

* Extracts from State Papers , 117. 

3 Ibid., 123. 


3 Ibid., 127. 


68 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


Proclamation, their collections among them, and sending many of 
their faction to several parts beyond the seas and maintaining them 
(if permitted) may give too great an opportunity to malicious dis¬ 
satisfied spirits through suchlike pretences to effect their dangerous 
designs to the prejudice of the present Government.” 1 

These are only samples of the action taken by hasty and fright¬ 
ened magistrates all over the country. The net swept wide, and 
by the end of January thousands of Friends were in prison, and 
one or two had died of the rough handling they had received. The 
King and Council were not left in ignorance of the events. Margaret 
Fell, courageous as ever, obtained audiences of Charles in which 
she gave him detailed accounts of her people’s sufferings (from the 
records which had so alarmed Sir Robert Hildyard), set forth again 
their peace principles, and told him plainly that “ it concerned him 
to see that peace should be kept, that so no blood might be shed.” * 
Thomas Moor, who also had some influence with the King, helped 
her in these interviews, from which they returned with the report 
that Charles was “ tender to them.” But, as later, at the time of 
the Popish Plot, Charles was perfectly able to combine a belief 
in the innocence of political sufferers with an entire disinclination 
to help them when the tide was running too strongly against them. 
It was not until the panic had subsided that the prison doors were 
opened. 

Fox and Hubberthorn at the first outbreak of trouble drew up 
a statement vindicating Friends from any share in the plot. It 
was confiscated in the printer’s hands, but they immediately re¬ 
drafted it and presented it to the King and Council on January 21, 
1660/1. Fox says “it cleared the air,” although arrests and 
imprisonments still continued. 3 In 1684 it was reprinted, to 
“stand as our certain testimony against all plotting and fighting 
with carnal weapons,” and thus may be taken as the official expres¬ 
sion of the early mind of the Society upon the question of peace 
and of loyalty to the established Government. In a later chapter 
its tenor is considered, with that of other contemporary Quaker 
tracts on peace. 

* Extracts , pp. 143 foil. * Camb. Journal , i. 386. 

3 Swarthmore MSS., i. 44, is a letter from Ellis Hookes, a leading London 
Friend, to Margaret Fell, describing the wholesale arrests of Quakers and Baptists 
at their first day meetings. “ The King and Council would have Friends promise 
that they will not take up arms . . . but our answer we have not yet returned, 
but thou knowest our principle is to live in peace and quietness.” 


CHAPTER III 


YEARS OF PERSECUTION 

1660-1702 

The little ark of Quakerism had been launched, and had survived 
the political tempests of the Protectorate and Restoration, but it 
still tossed on stormy waters in the reigns of the later Stuarts. 
Under Charles II Fox and his friends, not without opposition 
within the body, 1 completed the simple but efficient organization 
of the Society into co-ordinated groups of local meetings, Monthly 
and Quarterly, under the oversight of London Yearly Meeting, 
to which each group sent its representatives. The existence of 
this organized authority exercising regular discipline over its members 
was one cause of the gradual recognition of the Society of Friends 
and the grudging toleration of its worship which was won under 
James II. But so much of the Quaker testimony brought its 
holders into direct conflict with the social framework of the day, 
that liberty of worship in itself did not bring them ease. Their 
refusal to pay tithes in support of a State Church, to take the oaths 
of allegiance, and to have any share in military preparations were 
not condoned even when at length they could assemble on First 
Day without the expectation that their meeting would be broken 
up by a rude band of soldiers and the worshippers haled to prison. 
There was hardly a year of this period in which a Quaker could 
lead a peaceable life and follow Fox’s advice “to keep clear of the 
powers.” Conspiracies at home and war abroad and on the seas 
sharpened the disfavour with which officials regarded men who 

1 The Wilkinson-Story separation, about the year 1676, was the first of the 
unhappy disputes which, especially in America, have weakened the testimony 
of the Society to the power of Christian love. These first seceders, however, 
formed no separate body, but were either absorbed in other sects or re-admitted 
to membership after confession of error {{vide Braithwaite, Second Period of 
Quakerism, ch. xi. pp. 290 foil.). 


69 


7 o 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


would neither swear fealty to the King nor arm to defend the 
country. And when it came to open hostilities, as in the Mon¬ 
mouth Rebellion of 1685 and the Revolution of 1688, the Quakers 
were found in neither camp and fell under the suspicion of both 
parties. But it was under the King who gained his crown by the 
pledge of liberty to tender consciences that their sufferings were 
most severe. 

The cry of sedition raised against them in 1661 was re-echoed 
throughout Charles’ reign at the rumour of any real or imaginary 
plot. Fox was again arrested at Swarthmore 1 in 1663, and brought 
to the justices at Holker Hall on suspicion of complicity in a con¬ 
spiracy reported to be brewing at that time in the North of England. 2 
A Catholic Justice, Middleton, called him a rebel and traitor. 
Fox’s anger flamed up, and “ I struck my hand on the table, and 
told him, ‘ I had suffered more than twenty such as he or any that 
was there ; for I had been cast into Derby dungeon for six months 
together because I would not take up arms against this King at 
Worcester fight, and was carried up out of my own county by 
Colonel Hacker before O. C. as a plotter to bring in King Charles 
in 1654.’ ” Middleton tried to turn the attack by a sneer, “ Did 
you ever hear the like ? ” “ Nay,” said Fox, “ ye may hear it again 

if ye will. For ye talk of the King, a company of ye, but I have 
more love to the King for his eternal good and welfare than any 
of you have.” He was then questioned about the plot, and replied 
that he had heard rumours, but knew nothing of it or of those 
concerned. Why then, asked the justices, had he warned his 
followers against it ? 

“ My reason was,” he replied, “ because you are so forward to 
mash the innocent and guilty together, therefore I wrote against 
it to clear the truth from such things, and to stop all forward foolish 
spirits from running into such things. ... I sent a copy of it 
to the King and Council.” He was committed to the sessions at 
Lancaster, on his refusal to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 
and imprisoned in Lancaster Gaol, from which he issued another 
paper against war, plots, and oaths. 3 There he remained for several 
months, and in 1665 was removed to Scarborough Castle and kept 

1 Camb. Journal , ii. 39 foil. 

2 For an account of this conspiracy, which included the abortive “ Kaber 
Rigg Plot” of August 1663, vide W. C. Braithwaite, Second Period of 
Quakerism , pp. 29-30 and 39. 

3 Vide p. 56. 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 71 

a close prisoner until September 1, 1666, when he was released. 
The accommodation was miserable, and his health suffered severely, 
but he made many friends, from the Governor of Scarborough to 
the soldiers in the guard-room. On one occasion his principle of 
non-resistance was put to a severe test. 

“ There were, amongst the prisoners, two very bad men, that often 
sat drinking with the officers and soldiers ; and because I would not 
sit and drink with them too, it made them worse against me. One 
time when these two prisoners were drunk, one of them (whose 
name was William Wilkinson, a Presbyterian, who had been a 
captain), came to me and challenged me to fight with him. Seeing 
what condition he was in, I got out of his way ; and next morning, 
when he was more sober, showed him, how unmanly it was in him 
to challenge a man to fight, whose principle he knew it was not 
to strike but if he was stricken on one ear to turn the other. I 
told him, if he had a mind to fight he should have challenged some 
of the soldiers, that could have answered him in his own way. But, 
however, seeing he had challenged me, I was now come to answer 
him with my hands in my pockets and (reaching my head to him) 
‘ here,’ said I, ‘ here is my hair, here are my cheeks, here is my 
back.’ With that he skipped away from me and went into another 
room ; at which the soldiers fell a laughing ; and one of the officers 
said : ‘You are a happy man that can bear such things.’ Thus he 
was conquered without a blow.” 1 

Rumours of this “ Rising in the North ” and of Quaker com¬ 
plicity were already current in the latter half of 1662, 2 but a much 
more definite alarm was given a year later. An unsigned letter 
to Secretary Bennet, dated July 24, 1663, tells of news from the 
North “that they are all ready in the four counties and Yorkshire, 
that they will be up in a few days, the Quakers to a man are engaged 
in it. . . . So far as I can learn it is a wild business and nothing 
formidable in it, save only that the inferior officers and disbanded 
soldiers who live in these parts are in it.” 3 

The Quakers’ case is given in a letter from Sir Thomas Gower, 
Governor of York, a few days later. “ I had this morning some 
Quakers with me who do not deny that they have been solicited 
to join in outward things to spiritual good, and that their answer 
was they would use no carnal weapon.” 4 They refused, however, 

1 Journal , p. 67. 3 Extracts, pp. 150, 157-9. 

3 Extracts, p. 171. S.P.D., xxvii. 50. 

4 Extracts, p. 171. S.P.D. , xxviii. 6. 


72 THE SEFENTEENTH CENTURY 

to betray the conspirators. “Joseph Helling, a Quaker prisoner 
in Durham, who had fallen under Ranter influence . . . and 
was out of unity with Friends, is stated to have sent a letter to 
Richardson, one of the plotters, in which he regarded ‘ the favourable 
conjunction of the stars ’ as hopeful for action. Richard Robinson, 
of Countersett, admitted knowledge of one of the arch-plotters, 
John Atkinson of Askrigg, the stockinger, who seems to have been 
something of a Quaker, as Robinson and he had been in prison at 
York together, and both names occur in the Fifth Monarchy Lists 
in Besse. Robinson himself seems to have been quite clear.” 1 2 

Even in February 1665 an East Riding magistrate was busy 
taking the depositions of villagers who had heard Quakers or 
alleged Quakers use wild words about the sword of God. 3 When 
the Great Fire raged in the first week of September 1666, the 
guilt of the catastrophe was impartially assigned to the Catholics 
and the Quakers. The smoke was still rising from the ruined 
city when a subordinate at Grantham reported his discovery to Sir 
Philip Frowd, Governor of the Post Office. 

“ I have here enclosed some printed papers and a letter from 
William Talby, harness maker in St. Martin’s Lane, near the Mews 
which was sent to John Petchell, a Quaker, in a trunk, and eight 
quires of them to be dispersed. If you please to communicate 
them to the King and Council, I shall, whenever you please to 
command them, send them up. They are full of sedition, and 
I am sure of a dangerous consequence, considering the sad condition 
the City and Kingdom are now in.” A postscript called attention 
to the weighty fact that the seal of the seditious letter bore the 
device : “ The man of sin shall fall, and Christ shall reign o’er 
all.” 3 

In 1663 Francis Howgill assured Judge Twisden at Appleby 
Assizes that the Friends were clear of complicity in the rising. “If 
I had twenty lives I would engage them all, that the body of the 
Quakers will never have any hand in war, or things of that nature, 
that tend to the hurt of others, and if any such, whom you repute 
to be Quakers, be found in such things, I do before the Court here, 
and before all the country deny them : they are not of us.” Yet, 

1 Braithwaite, Second Period of Quakerism, p. 39 note, summarizing Extracts, 
p. 178. 

2 Extracts, p. 236. S.P.D., cxiii. 63. 

3 Extracts, p. 255. S.P.D., clxxi. 24, date September 10, 1666. 





TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 73 

after a remand to the next assizes, Howgill was sentenced to 
imprisonment for life, and in fact died in prison in 1668.1 

Apart from these suspicions of treason, as the military system 
of the country was reorganized upon a settled basis, Friends 
inevitably came into conflict with its demands. Acts were passed 
levying a poll tax for the maintenance of the war against the 
Dutch in 1667, and of that with France in 1678. From the 
account book kept by Sarah Fell of Swarthmore Hall, which still 
survives, it is evident not only that the women of the Fell 
family paid the tax for some property they held jointly with 
other owners, but that it was also paid by, or on behalf of, their 
stepfather George Fox. 2 
The item reads :— 

£ s. d. 

29 May [1678] By m° paid to the Poll Money for ffather and 

Mother ... ... ... ... ... ... ... j 2 o 

An ancient document 3 in the Friends’ Reference Library 
endorsed by Fox, “ A paper concerning trebet [tribute] by g. f.,” 
apparently refers to one of these Acts, as it is also endorsed : “ This 
is a copy of a letter sent to some Friends concerning the Poll Act.” 

In it he says : “ So in this thing, so doing, we can plead with 
Caesar and plead with them that hath our custom and hath our 
tribute if they seek to hinder us from our godly and peaceable 
life . . . then ” [if payment were not made] “ might they say 
and plead against us, How can we defend you against foreign enemies 
and protect everyone in their estates and keep down thieves and 
murderers, that one man should not take away another’s estate 
from him ? ” This distinction between taxation by the Govern¬ 
ment and the exaction of direct military service has been accepted 
by most later Friends. The question of a standing army was ever 
in dispute between the King and the people, and Parliament saw 
to it that the royal guards were kept down to the smallest possible 
numbers. Partly, perhaps, owing to the small size of the army, 

1 Besse, ii. (Westmorland). Howgill received his sentence with the words : 
“ Hard sentence for obeying the commands of Christ, but I am content, and in 
perfect peace with the Lord. And the Lord forgive you all.” 

* Swarthmore Account Book, edited Norman Penney, pp. 45, 79, 181, 209, 355, 
391, 395, 443, 473, 503, for instances of payment of assessments on property for 
militia and naval purposes, etc. 

s Swarthmore MSS., vii. 165. Cp. Fox, Epistles , p. 137, quoted in 
Chapter IV. 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


74 

there were few instances of conversions to Quakerism among pro¬ 
fessional soldiers after the Restoration. A militia soldier in Ireland, 
Christopher Hilary, while serving in 1670, became “convinced 
of the unlawfulness of wars and fightings under the Gospel,” and 
refused to bear arms. He received the punishment of riding the 
wooden horse (of which Quakers in the Colonies endured more 
than their share) and was (illegally) imprisoned for a short time. 1 
In 1693 the Meeting for Sufferings 2 was interested by the account 
of a soldier, James Predeaux, convinced at Canterbury, who, upon 
laying down his arms, was committed to Canterbury Gaol and 
much abused. The Meeting procured his discharge from gaol and 
army, and he presumably joined the Society. In 1690 there is a 
curious instance of Quaker pertinacity. “ Henry Hayes and three 
other Friends, carpenters that worked in the King’s Yard at Chatham, 
being turned out (because they could not bear arms) without their 
wages, Thomas Barker is desired to assist them to get their wages.” 3 
Apparently the workmen in the dockyard were being drilled from 
fear of a French attack, and though these Quakers worked on the 
ships of war their scruples awoke at this further development. 4 
The constant fear of the constitutional danger involved in a regular 
army led Parliament to entrust the defence of the country to the 
old institution of a county militia. By the Act of 1662 property 
owners were required to furnish men, horses, and arms in proportion 
to the value of their property, while those of smaller means con¬ 
tributed to a parish rate for the same object. In theory the militia, 
or “ trained-bands ” as they were popularly termed in some districts, 
were called under arms for a few weeks of every year, but in practice 
the levy must have been erratic, for Friends in the various counties 
“ suffered ” at irregular intervals for their refusal to serve or to 
send substitutes. Besse, for example, in his two folio volumes of 
Friends’ Sufferings, gives instances under this head in Yorkshire 
in 1664, Essex in 1659 and 1684, Cambridgeshire in 1669 an d 1670, 

* Besse, vol. ii. (Ireland). 

3 A Committee of representative Friends established in 1675 to have the over¬ 
sight of all cases of suffering, whether by persecution or misfortune. 

3 Meeting for Sufferings MSS. 1690 and 1693 (in D.). A case of a Friend 
pressed as a soldier for the Flanders War in 1692, beaten for his refusal to serve, 
and finally ransomed by Friends, is recorded in Beck and Ball, London Friends* 
Meetings , p. 272. 

4 In 1660 Robert Grassingham was actually travelling to his home at Harwich 
“ with an order from the Commissioners of the Navy to refit one of the King’s 
frigates,” when he was arrested by the Sheriff of Essex as a Quaker (Besse, i. 195). 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 75 

Wales in 1677, Bristol in 1681, Berkshire in 1685, and Cornwall 
in 1688. No doubt levies were made more frequently, and Besse’s 
records do not claim to be exhaustive, but punishments on this 
count are far less common than those for ecclesiastical offences, 
especially for non-payment of tithes. There was also, apparently, 
in some Friends’ minds a doubt whether records of persecution 
should not be limited to these latter instances. In 1675 the Morning 
Meeting directed that “ in the several counties they that find arms, 
etc., be tenderly admonished about it, according to the ancient 
testimony of Christ Jesus.” 1 * 3 The Meeting for Sufferings con¬ 
sidered, on December 20, 1678, the cases of “Friends’ sufferings 
on account of not bearing arms, sending out men in arms, and not 
gratifying the marshals or other officers ”—perhaps a hint that 
the officials were not incorruptible. It was agreed that “ sufferings 
by distresses of their goods or otherwise on any such accounts is a 
suffering for the Lord and His truth, and . . . that the respective 
sufferings on that account be recorded in the respective monthly 
meetings, and thence returned to this meeting.” 2 In Kent and 
Sussex, where the fear of foreign invasion was ever present, and in 
London, whose train-bands a hundred years before John Gilpin 
were formed as an efficient force, the hand of the law fell most 
heavily on Friends. The minute-books of Kent Quarterly Meetings 
show only fourteen years in the period 1660 to 1702 in which there 
is no record of fine or imprisonment for this cause .3 Kent Friends 
were evidently men of small means, for the liabilities laid upon them 
are curious fractions of the normal claims. They are brought 
before the courts for “ refusing to send out three parts of an arms,” 
“ not finding arms for the quarter part of a musket,” “ not 
contributing to the quarter part of the charge of finding a musket 
30 days at 2s. a day,” and, strangest of all, for “ not sending in 
half a man to a muster with a month’s pay.” 

In the earlier years of the period prison was sometimes the 
penalty. John Hogbin of Dover spent nineteen weeks of the year 
1661 in the Castle, “by which means his trading was spoilt to his 
great damage.” But usually there are distraints for fines, often 
much in excess of the sum required. “ A silver cup worth 50s. 

1 W. C. Braithwaite, Second Period of Quakerism, p. 616, quoting a Minute of 
May 31st. 

* Meeting for Sufferings, MSS. Vol. i. 

3 Kent Q.M. MSS. Records of Sufferings i. 299-322. In D. 


the sefenteenth centurt 


76 

for a fine of 20s.,” “ One mare worth £7 for a fine of 30s.,” an d 
similar plaints are recorded. In 1690 Friends at Ashford suffered 
special hardship. “ When William Honeywood the Colonel was 
about reckoning the days the bands had been out he would have 
fined them at the rate of 2s. a day. But the said Thomas Curtis 
told him if they fined them not more than so, they would not care 
whether they sent them out or not. So they fined some after the 
rate of 4s. a day, which was to the utmost rigour of their Act. And 
when the Constables had done their parts, and sold things for half 
the worth, some Friends were at 8s. a day charge.” 1 The excess 
was occasionally returned. At Cranbrook John Colvill and his 
wife were hardly dealt with in 1682 and 1683, and the record 
unconsciously paints for us a Dutch picture of a thrifty Quaker’s 
kitchen plenishings. In the former year, for a fine of 40s., “ the 
said constable, searching Susannah ColvilPs spice-box found there 
twenty shillings and sixpence of ready money which he seized in 
part of the said fine, and to make it up carried away thirty-nine 
pounds of pewter.” Next year the levy was more varied. 

“14 pieces of dish pewter 

2 porringers 

1 flagon 

I brass mortar 

1 iron dripping pan (returned) 

3 new trundle bed sheets (returned back) also in money 

eleven shillings.” 

The successive Clerks to the Quarterly Meeting make methodical 
notes of these exactions, to be forwarded to London as the Meeting 
for Sufferings had requested. Only once does the record diverge 
from a plain statement of facts, when George Girdler of Tenterden 
in 1667 declares that he is “ refusing, not in contempt of the King 
or any of his officers, but in obedience to the Lord, who had showed 
him mercy, and had called him from carnal weapons to love enemies 
according to Christ’s doctrine, and not to take up arms against 
them.” In Sussex, Middlesex, and London there were frequent 

1 These duties in connection with the militia and with the Test oaths, were 
the main reason why Friends refused the office of constable, a refusal for which 
they incurred fines. In 1672, one Thomas Talbot, “ being cunstabell or ofeser,” 
so far forgets himself as to press men for the King’s service “ too fight, it being 
contrary to the principal of Trewth which Friends one ” (London Friends' Meetings , 
p. 288). 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 77 

instances of these militia distraints during the same period, and 
Besse gives cases in which claims were made on women property 
owners. 1 But sufferings “for not bearing arms,” as will be seen 
later, were far heavier in the Colonies, and the records of the 
Meeting for Sufferings and the Epistles interchanged between London 
Yearly Meeting and those established in the Colonies contain 
frequent references to these troubles. Occasionally the Meeting 
for Sufferings had to take cognisance of pettier forms of persecution, 
as when Abram Bonifield complained in November 1692 that 
the Mayor of Reading had paid off an old grudge against him “ by 
quartering great numbers of soldiers, near twenty at a time, and 
when spoken to he tells him he will send him more.” 2 Even 
meeting-houses were not exempt, for in 1686 George Whitehead 
and Gilbert Latey, in a personal interview with James, laid before 
him “the hardships which had befallen their friends in regard to 
their meeting-houses at the Park in Southwark and at the Savoy 
in the Strand. The Park had been turned into a guard-room 
in May 1685, and the soldiers (as soldiers have done in all cen¬ 
turies) “ did great spoil and damage by pulling down pales, digging 
up and cutting down trees, carrying away and burning them with 
the wainscotting and benches. They carried away one of the 
outer doors, and many of the casements.” The troop was called 
out to camp, and Friends began to undertake the necessary repairs, 
but in October the soldiers returned again to take forcible possession 
of the whole building. “They pulled down the galleries and 
made a brick wall cross the lower rooms, with many other altera¬ 
tions, as if they intended to have the sole and perpetual possession 
to themselves, having made a place for prayers (or a mass-house 3) 
at one end inclosed from the rest by the said wall.” The total 
damage was computed at £150. At the Savoy, Friends were 
debarred from the use of their meeting-house for many weeks. 
The representation of “ the unreasonableness and illegality ” of 
these acts made sufficient impression on the King to effect the 

1 E.g. Besse, i. 172, 708. 

* Bonifield was soon relieved from his incubus, and the mayor so far relented 
as to promise that he should not suffer again. There is another instance of unfair 
billeting. Meeting for Sufferings , 1688, 3rd mo. 18. 

3 The Monmouth Rebellion had enabled James to increase his army, and he 
showed much favour to Catholic soldiers. At the camp at Hounslow “ a wooden 
chapel was set up within the lines, and horse, foot, and dragoons were encouraged 
to attend the Mass ” (Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts , p. 432). 


78 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

clearance of the meeting-houses from soldiers within a few weeks 
of the interview. 1 

As early as 1678 the Meeting for Sufferings was so much 
occupied by “the often sufferings of Friends by being impressed 
into the King’s ships of war” that Daniel Lobdy of Deal was 
appointed to procure their discharge in such cases. Any expenses 
he incurred were reimbursed by the Monthly or Quarterly Meetings 
concerned, and he proved very serviceable in his mission. At 
times in the hunt for seamen the gaols were invaded and Friends 
lying imprisoned for tithes were carried away. In 1695 an unhappy 
Northerner, Gerard Sefferenson, appeals to the Meeting for help, 
“ being kept on board by force and from his wife and child, although 
a Dean by nation.” 2 But the hardest case perhaps was that of the 
Friends captured by Algerine corsairs and ransomed by the Meetings 
at home. In March 1701 a letter announced to the Meeting the 
safe arrival in the Downs of some who had been redeemed. Not 
only were they “very uneasy” at the crew’s wicked living and 
“ very desirous to see Friends’ faces” (after fifteen or twenty years’ 
captivity), but they also feared that they would be pressed into men- 
of-war before they could land. The Meeting at once appealed to 
the Admiralty to exempt these men, who were “ redeemed at the 
particular charge of Friends and not at the Government charge.” 
The danger was averted, but at least one of the captives was pressed 
a few months later at the outset of a voyage to Pennsylvania, and 
was not released until a deputation from the Meeting for Sufferings 
had laid the case personally before the Lords of the Admiralty. 3 
It is indeed surprising not only that Friends were so ready to 
cross the seas on religious visits, but that so many followed the 
merchant service as their profession. In times of war with France 
and Holland the enemy’s cruisers and privateers haunted the seas 
on the watch for prizes ,4 and, if this danger was escaped, an English 

1 Besse, Sufferings , i. (London), p. 483. 

* Meeting for Sufferings , 1695. Dean = Dane, the ea being then pronounced d. 

Cp. “ And thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey. 

Dost sometime counsel take, and sometimes tea.”— Pope. 

“ Here is a great pressing seamen, and beating up for voluteers to send to France. 
And several shiploads are already sent to France, so that it is like to be a dismal 
summer ” (S<warthmore MSS., i. 52, Ellis Hookes to Margaret Fell, March 1671). 

3 Meeting for Sufferings , 1701, 1st mo. 3. 

4 In 1689 the Meeting for Sufferings had before it the case of the Quaker 
master and crew of a Newcastle collier taken by the French to Dunkirk. They 
were exchanged for French prisoners taken on the Noisteridame (Notre Dame or 
Nostridamus ?) and other vessels. 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 79 

man-of-war might hold up the merchant ship to press the likeliest 
members of the crew. Even in days of nominal peace the Mediter¬ 
ranean and Levant were never safe, when swift Algerine pirate- 
ships swooped down to carry crew and cargo captive to the “ Sally ” 
coast. Friends, as has been already noticed, were often held in 
durance there. In 1682 the Meeting for Sufferings notes the 
formation of a new meeting “ even among the captives in Algiers,” 
and collections for the redemption of these unhappy people are a 
common item in the Quaker records of the time. 1 2 In 1689 the 
Meeting sent a letter of warning to the ten Friends then enslaved 
at Macqueness ” [Mequinez in Morocco] not to resort to weapons 
for their liberty—a caution which they received with great meekness, 
replying that it agreed with their own resolution, not to grieve the 
Spirit of Truth, “ though in all probability there will be no redemp¬ 
tion for them while the [pirate] King lives, without guns.” Some 
of them have been six years as slaves in this “dismal place,” and 
have seen many perish. If, however, the merchants to whom 
they have entrusted money for their freedom bestow it in guns, 
should that deter them from using the opportunity ? The Meeting’s 
answer is not recorded, but another letter from one of the prisoners, 
read a few days later, shows that the “ guns ” were to procure their 
freedom by the peaceful process of barter. 

“James Ellis writes to his father from Mackarness that a 
bargain was made by an English merchant, one Smithson, to give 
4,000 musket barrels, 500 barrels of powder, and 30 Moors for 
30 Englishmen to the King. But is now made void again.” * 

Negotiations for the release of the captives were constantly 
renewed, sometimes with the help of the English Government 
and sometimes by private effort. The pirates evidently allowed 
their slaves to correspond with friends, or letters were smuggled, 
for the Meeting often received piteous appeals for money or pro¬ 
visions. In 1690 the captives were fed on “ seven year old decayed 
corn made into bread and mixt with lime,” and they suffer greatly 

1 J. W. Rowntree, Essays and Addresses t p. 47. “ There is a pathetic entry- 

fin the Minutes of Scarborough, Whitby, and Staintondale Monthly Meeting] 
in 10th month, 1681, of money returned which had been collected for the 
redemption of John Easton of Stockton from the Turks’ captivity, as Easton 
was ‘ not to be found.’ The sum was then set apart for the “ redemption of 
Henry Strangwis from Turkish Slaverie,’ but two years later the money was 
returned again, 4 both being dead.’ ” 

2 Meeting for Sufferings t 1689, 7th mo. 16 and 7th mo. 27. 


8 o 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


from eating the unwholesome stuff. The attempts at ransom were 
made through various traders (although it is strange that any trader 
would risk his person and his ship in the lion’s den of these pirate 
harbours), and the business, in Quaker phrase, was “ continued ” 
from month to month, while the Meeting awaited the arrival in 
England of a certain “ Jew ” and a “ Dutch Counsel ” [Consul ?] 
who left the corsairs’ haunts in 1690 and reached England in 
October 1691. 1 Yet it was not till 1701 that half a dozen captives 
were released from “ Sally ” at a cost of £480, and all of these were 
men who had been “ convinced ” during their long captivity. Some 
of the original Friends of the first messages had died as prisoners, 
and a few had been ransomed by private effort. In 1700 the 
Yearly Meeting, while reminding Friends of their duty to these 
sufferers, added : “ When the collectors shall come with the briefs 
to Friends’ houses, we hope Friends will be inclined to extend their 
charity in common with their neighbours, towards the redemption 
of the other English captives.” a 

Two artless narratives have come down to us from this later 
seventeenth century, telling of the dangers and difficulties which 
beset the ordinary Quaker in his witness for peace and universal 
love. They are both self-told : one, the pressing of Richard 
Seller, a Scarborough fisherman, the other the later experiences of 
Blake’s seaman, Thomas Lurting. 

Seller was pressed on Scarborough Pier in 1665, and later told 
his story “ weeping ” to a friend, who took it down from his lips. 3 
He refused to follow his captors and, naturally, met with much 
rough treatment, being hauled with a tackle aboard the vessel, which 
was hovering off the port to carry away the pressed men, and later, 
at the Nore, “ haled in at a gun-port ” on the ship-of-war Royal 
Prince (captain, Sir Edward Spragge ).4 Refusing either to work 
or to eat, he was promiscuously beaten by most of those in authority, 
from the boatswain’s mate with a piece of the capstan to the captain 
with his cane, and at last put in irons for twelve days. His patient 
endurance, however, won him some friends, for the boatswain’s 
mate declared he would never beat a Quaker again or anyone else 
for conscience’ sake (“and lost his place for it”), while the car- 

1 Vide Meeting for Sufferings % vol. vii, passim. 

2 Quoted by Luke Howard, The Torkshireman , iii. 351. 

3 It is found in full in Besse, Sufferings , ii. (Yorkshire). 

4 Seller always writes of him as “ Sir Edward,” but he was actually knighted 
on June 24th, after these naval actions. 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 81 

penter’s mate brought him food secretly, telling him that before 
he sailed his wife and mother had charged him to be kind to Quakers. 

But the captain had to deal with this stubborn passive resister, 
and Seller was brought before a court-martial constituted by the 
captains of the Fleet at the Nore, and (whether as co-adjutor or 
spectator is not very clear) the Governor of Dover Castle, * a Judge, 
but a Roman Catholic, “who went to sea on pleasure.” The 
account of the trial leaves an impression that it was intended to 
frighten Seller into submission. The “Judge,” having a pleasant 
fancy in punishments, suggested rolling the recusant in a barrel 
of nails, but the captains thought this “ too much unchristian-like,” 
and decided to hang him. Seller, however, remained unshaken, 
and told his judges that he was ready for death and glad to suffer, 
though some on board interceded for him. For the rest of the 
day he was treated kindly, and at night “ slept well.” Next morning 
he was brought on deck, prepared for execution, and a curious scene 
followed. 

“ Then s P ake the Judge, and said : ‘ Sir Edward is a merciful 
man, that puts that heretic to no worse death than hanging.’ Sir 
Edward turned him about to the Judge, and said : ‘ What saidst 
thou ? ’ ‘I say,’ replied he, ‘ you are a merciful man, that puts 
him to no worse death than hanging.’ ‘But,’ said he, ‘what is 
the other word that thou saidst, that heretic ? ’ ‘ I say ’ (said the 

Commander), he is more a Christian than thyself $ for I do believe 
thou wouldst hang me, if it were in thy power.’ Then said the 
Commander unto me : ‘ Come down again, I will not hurt an hair 
of thy head, for I cannot make one hair grow.’ Then he cried, 

‘ Silence all men ! ’ and proclaimed it three times over that, ‘ If 
any man or men on board the ship, would come and give evidence, 
that I had done any thing that I deserved death for, I should have 
it, provided they were credible persons.’ But nobody came, neither 
opened a mouth against me then. So he cried again, ‘ Silence all 
men, and hear me speak.’ Then he proclaimed that ‘ the Quaker 
was as free a man as any on board the ship was.’ So the men heaved 
up their hats, and with a loud voice cried ‘ God bless Sir Edward, 
he is a merciful man.’ The shrouds, and tops, and decks being 
full of men, several of their hats flew overboard and were lost. 
Then I had great kindness showed me by all men on board, but 
the great kindness of the Lord exceeded all, for the day I 
* Apparently, Sir George Strode. 

6 


was 


82 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

condemned to die on, was the most joyful day that ever I had in 
my life.” 

Whether Seller’s life had been in serious jeopardy may be 
doubted, but his own calm courage was not doubtful. He was now 
well treated, but still kept on board. We were at war with the 
Dutch, and a naval action was impending in which even a Quaker 
might be of service. Of service, in fact, he was. A few days 
before the action he had a vision or presentiment that the ship 
would run aground on a certain spot. He had some difficulty in 
making the pilot pay heed to his warning, but when Seller had 
pointed out the direction of the danger on the compass, the other 
consulted his chart and found “ the Sand, and the name thereof.” 

When the fight began, the sense of danger again pressed upon 
Seller, and he warned the pilot, who set two men to take soundings. 

“ They cried, 4 Five fathom and a quarter.’ Then the pilot 
cried, ‘ Starboard your helm ! ’ Then the Commander cried, 
‘ Larboard your helm, and bring her to.’ The pilot said he would 
bring the King’s ship no nearer, he would give over his charge. 
The Commander cried, * Bring her to ! ’ The pilot cried to the 
leadmen, * Sing aloud that Sir Edward may hear ’ (for the outcry 
was very great amongst the officers and seamen, because the ship 
was so near aground, and the enemies upon them), so they cried, 
‘ A quarter less five.’ The Commander cried, 4 We shall have 
our Royal Prince on ground ! Take up your charge, pilot.’ Then 
he cried hard, 4 Starboard your helm, and see how our ship will 
veer,’ so she did bear round up. The men at the lead cried, 4 Five 
fathom, and a better depth.’ Then the Commander cried, 4 God 
preserve the Royal Prince ! 9 Then the pilot cried, 4 Be of good 
cheer, Commander.’ They cried, 4 Six fathom,’ then 4 Nine 
fathom,’ then 4 Fifteen fathom,’ then 4 Sixteen fathom.’ The 
Hollanders then shouted and cried, 4 Sir Edward runs ! ’ Then he 
cried 4 Bring her to again,’ and the fight continued till the middle 
of the day was over, and it fell calm.” 

This was not Seller’s only service, for through the fire and 
smoke of the engagement he saw a Dutch fire-ship making for 
the Royal Prince. He pointed out the danger to the chief gunner, 
and a 44 Chace-gun with a ball in her ” did its work effectively. 
His own occupation was 44 to carry down the wounded men and 
to look out for fire-ships,” and he proved so serviceable that the 
commander ingenuously remarked that it was very fortunate he 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 83 

had escaped the death-sentence. A young lieutenant, Sir Edward’s 
nephew, said, “ There was not a more undaunted man on board, 
except his Highness.” 

A few days later a second engagement occurred. * Seller again 
volunteered for ambulance work, and late in the fight his friend 
the lieutenant meeting him, asked after his wounds. Seller replied 
that he was unscathed. “ He asked me, ‘ How came I to be so 
bloody ? ’ Then I told him, ‘ It was with carrying down wounded 
men.’ So he took me in his arms and kissed me ; and that was 
the same lieutenant that persecuted me so with irons at the first.” 

The English fleet retired, taking shelter at Chatham. There 
the commander offered Seller leave on shore. 

cc I asked him, if I might go on shore to recruit or go to my 
own Being ? 2 He said, c I should choose, whether I would.’ 

I told him, c I had rather go to my own Being.’ He said, I should 
do so. Then I told him there was one thing I requested of him 
yet, that he would be pleased to give me a certificate under his 
hand, to certify that I am not run away. He said, £ Thou shalt 
have one to keep thee clear at home, and also in thy fishing ’ ; for 
he knew I was a fisherman.” The certificate was prepared, and his 
pay as sailor offered, which he “ deserved as well as any man on 
board,” but Seller refused both this and a gift of money from the 
lieutenant, having, he said, what would see him home. He had 
a friendly parting from the commander, who desired to hear of 
his safe arrival home. “ I told him, I would send him a letter, 
and so I did.” But his dangers were not quite over, for in London 
he found his story was known to some crimps for the press-gang, 
who greeted him as “ Sir Edward’s Quaker ” and begged him to 
come to a tavern for a welcome to shore. However, on his refusal, 
they let him alone, and wished him a good journey home. 

Other sufferings awaited him at home in Yorkshire, but he had 
gone through his testing-time on this forced service in the Fleet, 
and he stood the test. If the narrative reveals him as a simple soul, 

1 The first battle was almost certainly that of Sole (or Southwold) Bay, 
June 2-3, 1665, in which the Royal Prince was engaged. There was also some 
fighting about ten days later. It is a strange coincidence that on June 3, 1666, 
the Royal Prince ran aground on the Galloper Sands and was burnt by the Dutch 
“ which touched every heart in the Fleet. She was the best ship ever built, and 
like a castle on the sea ” (Cal. State Papers , Domestic , 1664-5, PP- 4 ° 3 _ 9 5 1665-6, 
pp. 481-2). 

* That is, to go home. So Mr. Peggotty, a Norfolk fisherman, speaks of 
finding a “ Bein ” for Mrs. Gummidge (David CopperJield } ch. 51). 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


84 

it also reveals honesty, courage, and an absolute trust in the guidance 
and protection of God. 

Thomas Lurting, who had entered the merchant service when 
his conscience drove him out of the Navy, was also pressed several 
times in the early years of the Restoration and met with harsh 
treatment. Like Seller, he refused to eat the King’s food, and 
neither words nor blows would make him do the King’s work on 
a war-vessel. His captors soon grew weary of him and sent him 
home. He was a man of greater intellectual ability than Seller, 
and able to hold his own when there was opportunity for argument. 
To threats, indeed, he opposed his favourite principle of silence. 
When one captain had wearied of curses, “ he said more mildly, 

‘ Why dost thou say nothing for thyself ? ’ My answer was, 

‘ Thou sayest enough for thee and me too.’ For I found it most 
safe to say nothing, except I had good authority for it.” Another 
thought he had found a sharp taunt against the Quaker, who had 
been pressed from a ship carrying corn. The corn would feed 
the sailors, and the sailors would kill the Dutch. Was Lurting 
not an accessory to their deaths ? “I kept very still and low in 
my mind, and . . . said to the captain, 4 1 am a man that have 
fed and can feed my enemies, and well may I you, who pretend 
to be my friends.’ ” To which the captain could only reply, 
“ Take him away He is a Quaker.” Another captain made a 
serious effort to gain the services of this experienced and hardy 
seaman and to meet his scruples, as far as he understood them. 
Lurting told him he had been as great a fighter as others, but was 
so no more. 44 4 1 hear so,’ said the captain, 4 and that thou hadst 
a command, and so shalt thou have here ; or else thou shalt stand 
by me, and I will call to thee to do so and so ; and this is not killing 
of a man, to haul a rope.’ I answered, 4 But I will not do that.’ 
4 Then,’ said he, 4 thou shall be with the coopers to hand beer for 
them, there is great occasion for it.’ I answered, 4 But I will not 
do that.’ 4 Then,’ said he again, 4 I have an employment for thee 
which will be a great piece of charity, and a saving of men’s lives 
—thou shalt be with the doctor, and when a man comes down, 
that has lost a leg or an arm, to hold the man, while the doctor cuts 
it off. That is not killing men, but saving men’s lives.’ I 
answered, 4 1 am in thy hand, thou mayst do with me what thou 
pleasest.’ ” 

Seller readily helped the wounded : but he had already taken 


TEARS OF PERSECUTION 85 

his stand and won recognition for his conscience. Lurting would 
not accept an offer which was intended to enrol him as one of the 
ship’s company and as a part of the machinery of war. 

But Lurting’s most constructive and active piece of work for 
his faith was done in the course of his own trade. The dangerous 
state of the Mediterranean gave him the opportunity of putting 
into practice his principle of peace and goodwill to all men. He 
was mate of a ship under a Quaker captain, George Pattison, on the 
return voyage from Venice when, near the Spanish island of “ May 
York” (Majorca), the vessel was captured by a “Turkish” 
(Algerine) corsair. The boat was boarded by the “ Turks,” who 
sent the master, with four men, on board their ship, leaving ten 
of the pirates to guard the English vessel and the rest of the crew. 
In this strait Lurting was supported by an inward monition that 
he and his fellows would be saved from captivity in Algiers, and 
he exerted himself to keep the crew patient and under discipline. 
Before long the other prisoners were sent back on board, although 
there still seemed little hope of deliverance. But Lurting had his 
plans formed. 

“We being all together, except the Master, I began to reason 
with them, What if we should overcome the Turks and go to May 
York ! At which they very much rejoiced, and one said, ‘ I will 
kill one or two ’ j and another said, ‘ I will cut as many of their 
throats as you will have me.’ This was our men’s answer, at 
which I was very much troubled, and said to them, 4 If I know 
any of you that offers to touch a Turk, I will tell the Turks myself. 
But,’ I said to them, ‘ if you will be ruled, I will act for you, if not, 
I will be still.’ Then they agreed.” 

Lurting’s plan was to disarm suspicion by ready obedience to 
the pirates. He unfolded it to his captain, a “ very bold-spirited 
man ” but so averse to bloodshed that he did not approve until 
Lurting assured him that “ I questioned not but to do it without 
one drop of bloodshed and I believed that the Lord would prosper 
it, by reason I could rather go to Algiers than kill one Turk. So 
at last he agreed to this, to let me do what I would, provided I 
killed none.” A storm, which separated them from the corsair- 
ship, favoured the plan, and the policy of cheerful submission ren¬ 
dered the Turks so careless that two nights later he was able to 
disarm them all in their sleep and keep them below decks while 
the vessel’s course was shaped for Majorca. Next morning one 


86 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 

was allowed on deck, “ expecting to see his own country, but it 
was May York.” Lurting had some fear of a rising at this point, 
but when the Turk told his fellows, “ they instead of rising, fell 
all to crying, for their courage was taken from them.” They 
only begged not to be sold to the Spaniards, a promise readily given 
by Lurting, who hid them when the vessel entered the harbour. 
Unluckily, another English captain in the port, to whom they 
revealed the secret, had no such scruples, but offered to buy some 
himself, saying “ they are worth two or three hundred pieces of 
eight each. Whereat the master and I told him, that if they would 
give many thousands, they should not have one, for we hoped 
to send them home again.” The man, thinking them fools, told 
the Spanish authorities, who prepared to confiscate the human 
cargo. But Lurting and his men explained the danger to their 
prisoners, who helped them to get the ship under way, and they 
sailed off in all haste, “ which pleased the Turks very well.” 

For a week or so they coasted about, not daring to put in at 
a Spanish port. When the immediate danger was over both sides 
grew discontented. The Englishmen grumbled at the good treat¬ 
ment of the Turks, to which Lurting’s reply was, “ They are 
strangers, I must treat them well ” ; while the Algerines feared 
they might be carried to England. One day they began to threaten 
the captain, and Lurting’s account of the way in which he dealt 
with the incipient rising shows the ascendancy he had gained by 
his character and courage. 

“ I started up, and stamped with my foot, and our men came 
up, one saying, ‘ Where’s the crow ? ’ Another, ‘ Where’s the 
axe ? ’ I said, ‘ Let us have them down, we have given them too 
much liberty ; but first lay down (said I to our men) the crow 
and the axe and, every man of you, what you have provided to 
hurt them. They are Turks and we are Englishmen ; let it not 
be said we are afraid of them : I will lay hold on the [Turkish] 
captain.’ So I stepped forward, and laid hold of him, and said 
he must go down, which he did very quietly, and all the rest.” 

The boat’s course was turned along “ the coast of Barbary,” 
and Lurting collected volunteers for the dangerous venture of rowing 
the prisoners ashore. Captain Pattison was unwilling to risk his 
men’s lives, but Lurting assured him of his confidence in Divine 
protection, “for I had nothing but good will in venturing my 
life.” Before the start the sailors’ hearts began to fail them, and 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 87 

they begged that the Turks should be bound. Lurting replied, 
in his common-sense way, that the attempt would only exasperate 
them and, being quiet, it was well to keep them so. He packed 
them tightly in the stern of the boat, armed himself and his men 
with some rough-and-ready weapons—a boat-hook, a carpenter’s 
adze and a cooper’s knife—and piled the Turks’ own arms in the 
bow. So they started, “committing ourselves to the Lord for 
preservation, we being three men and a boy, and ten Turks.” But 
the way to shore with only two rowers seemed long, and the men’s 
courage gradually ebbed. They were but thirty yards from the 
shore when the man Lurting had appointed to keep a look-out 
raised an alarm of an ambush. 

“ And he speaking so positively, it seized me, so that I was 
possessed with fear ; and so soon as the Turks in the boat saw I 
was afraid, they all rose at once in the boat. And this was one 
of the greatest straits I ever was put to ; not for fear of the Turks 
in the boat, but for fear of our men killing them : for I would not 
have killed a Turk or caused one to be killed for the whole world. 
And when the Turks were risen, I caused our men to lay their oars 
across the boat for that was all that was betwixt us, and bid the 
men take up such arms as they had. Then said I to them, I would 
have you be as good as your word, for you promised me you would 
do nothing, until I said I could do no more : now I desire you 
to keep to that. For there was nothing lacking but my word to 
kill the Turks.” 

All this while (Lurting tells us) the Turks were standing up, 
and the fact that the boat was not swamped speaks well for its 
solid construction. After a sharp rebuke to his men for their 
cowardice, Lurting had recourse to his favourite method of silent 
meditation. 

“ At last all fear was taken away, and life arose and courage 
increased again ; and it was with me, it is better to strike a blow 
than to cleave a man’s head or cut off an arm. Having turned 
the hook of the boat into my hand, I got into the middle of the 
boat upon the main thwarts. I struck the captain a smart blow 
and bid him sit down, which he did instantly, and so did all the 
rest, without any more blows. Then I stepped forward and said 
to our men, Now you see what it is to be afraid ; what shall we 
do now ? ” 

The men proposed to take back their prisoners to the ship, 


88 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTXJRT 


but Lurting’s reply showed the sympathy which was the source 
of his influence. 

“ Not so, said I, God willing, I will put them on shore ; for 
they will come quietly near the shore, but if we carry them on 
board there will be nothing but rising. For if it were my own case , 
I would rise ten times, and so will they.” A suitable landing-place 
was chosen, a few miles from some Arab villages and fifty miles 
from Algiers, and the Turks disembarked, with arms and pro¬ 
visions. “ So we parted in great love, and stayed until they had 
all got up the hill, and they shook their caps at us, and we at them.” 

A fair wind brought the ship to England, where the last scene 
of the story was played. 

“King Charles and the Duke of York and many of his lords 
being at Greenwich it was told them there was a Quaker ketch 
coming up the river that had been taken by the Turks and had 
redeemed themselves, and had never a gun. And when we came 
near to Greenwich the King came to our ship’s side, and one of 
his lords came in and discoursed with the master, and the King 
and the Duke of York stood with the entering-ropes in their 
hands, and asked me many questions about his men-of-war. I 
told him we had seen none of them. Then he asked me many 
questions how we cleared ourselves ; and I answered him. He 
said, I should have brought the Turks to him. I answered, that 
I thought it better for them to be in their own country ; at which 
they all smiled and went away.” 

These sea perils led many merchants and captains to arm their 
ships against pirates and privateers, and the step was approved by 
the Admiralty. Often vessels delayed their sailing until others 
bound for the same port were ready, and the little fleet was con¬ 
voyed by ships of war through the dangers of the Channel. This 
practice brought the Quakers into difficulties, for the other captains 
were unwilling that unarmed ships which could give no help in 
case of attack should sail in the convoy. On December io, 1672, 
Ellis Hookes, a leading London Friend, later the first Clerk to the 
Meeting for Sufferings, wrote to Margaret Fox that he was working 
in the cause of two Friends, Thomas Hutsin and James Strutt, 
whose ships had been stopped from sailing by command of the 
Duke of York. An Order in Council had been passed that “from 
that day forward not any vessel, little or great, shall go to sea out 



TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 89 

of any port in England, without guns ; great guns if great ships, 
and small guns and granadoes if small ships, and must give bond 
to ^ght, if occasion be. This Order is procured by the envious 
petition of some Barbadoes merchants in this city, which will tend 
to the great damage of many Friends, whose whole maintenance 
depends upon the sea trade.” 1 Friends prepared to present a 
counter petition to the Council, and Ellis Hookes used his “ utmost 
interest on their behalf. On Christmas Eve he wrote again that, 
after much exertion, he had obtained an order for the two vessels 
to sail, and they were at the Downs, “ which was a great satisfaction 
to many Friends, for nobody would believe they should be suffered 
to go. 2 3 Twenty years later a similar difficulty was caused not 
by Government interference, but by backsliding in the Society. 
In the summer of 1690 the Meeting for Sufferings was exercised 
by the report that a shipmaster at Liverpool “ that comes among 
Friends” carried guns on his ships .3 A letter was sent by the 
Meeting to the Liverpool Friends reminding them of their ancient 
testimony and “ that it hath not been the practice of Friends to 
use or carry carnal weapons, and Friends at London have suffered 
much for refusing.” This shipmaster may not have actually 
identified himself with Friends, but there was shortly after a real 
defection in their own ranks. For some years (since 1678) the 
Yearly Meeting, after its sessions were over, had circulated among 
the local meetings a “Paper” or “Epistle,” which summarized 
the conclusions reached during the discussions. This Epistle, in 
1692, emphatically asserts the loyalty of the Society to the newly 
established rule of William and Mary, “ being obliged to demean 
ourselves not only as a grateful people but as a Christian society, 
to live peaceably and inoffensively under the present Government, 
as we have always done under the various revolutions of govern- 

1 Swarthmore MSS., i. 76. The petition, or another to the same purpose, 
is preserved in the Colonial Records under date December 27, 1672. ( Vide Cal. 

State Papers , Colonial, 1669-74, p. 455) ; it was as follows : “ There is now going 
to the West Indies several considerable ships commanded by Quakers, who sail 
without guns. Now, if the said ships shall fall into the enemy’s hands they will 
make considerable men-of-war against us. And also, these ships can sail much 
cheaper than ships of force, and by consequence get much profit to their owners, 
which will in time ease all ships of force of all trade. And this mischief will 
increase, if not by his Majesty’s timely wisdom prevented.” 

* Snjoarthmore MSS., i. 53. 

3 Meeting for Sufferings, 1690, 4th mo. 13. 


9 o 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


ment, ever since we were a people, according to our ancient Christian 
principle and practice.” 1 

But in the following year the claims of Government and Gospel 
were conflicting, and the question of armed merchant ships was 
definitely raised in the Yearly Meeting. 

The Epistle gives out no uncertain voice on the matter. “ A 
complaint being made about some shipmasters (who profess the 
truth and are esteemed Quakers) carrying guns in their ships, sup¬ 
posing thereby to defend and secure themselves and their ships, 
contrary to their former principle and practice, and to the endan¬ 
gering of their own and others’ lives thereby ; also giving occasion 
of more severe hardships and sufferings to be inflicted on such 
Friends as are pressed into ships of war, who for conscience’ sake, 
cannot fight nor destroy men’s lives, it is therefore recommended 
to the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings whereunto such ship¬ 
masters belong, to deal with them in God’s wisdom and tender love, 
to stir them up and awaken their consciences, that they may seriously 
consider how they injure their own souls in so doing, and what 
occasion they give to make the truth and Friends to suffer by their 
declension and acting contrary thereunto, through disobedience 
and unbelief; placing their security in that which is altogether 
insecure and dangerous ; which we are really sorry for, and sin¬ 
cerely desire their recovery and safety from destruction, that their 
faith and confidence may be in the arm and power of God.” a 

After this statement of the particular difficulty, the Epistle 
passes on to explain the principles underlying the rebuke :— 

Dear Friends, 

You very well know our Christian principle and profession in this 
matter, both with respect to God and Caesar, that, because we are subjects 
of Christ’s kingdom, which is not of this world, we cannot fight (John 
xviii. 36) ; yet, being subjects of Caesar’s kingdom, we pay our taxes, 

» With the official document, two well-known Friends, Steven Crisp and George 
Whitehead, circulated a letter of their own, deprecating the party spirit which 
had distracted the country. “ Away with those upbraiding characters of Jacobites 
and Williamities, Jemmites and Billites, etc., so used by the world’s people one 
against another, to make parties and divisions, and to stir up wrath and enmity. 
Let the spirit of enmity, strife, and contention be judged and kept out of God’s 
heritage forever, and let us have no such upbraiding distinctions in God’s camp 
... no more than of Whig and Tory, long since judged out and testified against.’’ 

a It is worth noting that the Minute of the Yearly Meeting upon which this 
passage is based is somewhat more emphatic. “ Some that profess Truth and carry 
guns in their ships . . . should be dealt with in love and plainness.” 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 91 

tribute, etc., according to the example of Christ and his holy apostles, 
relating to Christ s kingdom and Caesar’s, wherein we are careful not to 
offend (Matt. xvii. 27; xxii. 20. Rom. xiii. 6, 7). 

How far the trouble had spread it is not easy to judge. There 
was certainly a case in the North, at Shields, where the Monthly 
Meeting had successful dealing with Lawrence Haslam, a merchant 
captain of North Shields, who in earlier days had suffered imprison¬ 
ment for his Quakerism. In January 1693/4, at the Monthly 
Meeting, it was reported that “ Friends had some discourse with 
him about having guns in his ship, and tenderly admonished him 
of the evil consequences of it, and of its inconsistency with the 
principle of truth ’ ; upon which the meeting decided that repre¬ 
sentative Friends “ may further deal with Lawrence as in the 
wisdom of God they may see necessary, and give account to this 
meeting.” T hese further steps were evidently successful, for in 
March, “ Jeremiah Hunter and Lawrence Weardale having spoke 
to Lawrence Haslam about carrying guns does certify this meeting 
that he gives them an account that for the satisfaction of Friends 
he hath sold his guns, and is to deliver them very shortly.” 1 2 

The Society, which had been born in the days of the Civil War, 
had now, as an organized body, to face again the difficulties of civil 
strife, first in the West during the Monmouth Rebellion, and then 
for three terrible years in Ireland. West Country Friends were 
for the most part innocent spectators, and they escaped compara¬ 
tively lightly even amidst the butcheries and terrors of the Bloody 
Assize. Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis on June 11, 1685; 
his cause fell in ruin at the battle of Sedgemoor on July 6th, and 
for the rest of the year his hapless followers were hunted down by 
Colonel Kirke in the open fields and by Jeffreys in the Assize 
Courts. 

One of the simple memoirs of this early generation of Friends 
gives a vivid sketch of Somersetshire under the Rebellion and under 
the vengeance which followed. John Whiting, the author of 
Persecution Expos'd * was a small farmer of Nailsea, near Bristol, 
who from 1679 for more than six years suffered imprisonment in 
Ilchester Gaol, with many other Friends, on account of his refusal 

1 Moberly Phillips, Forgotten Burying Grounds of the Society of Friends . 
Proceedings of Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, November 1892. 

2 Persecution expos'd in some memoirs relating to the Sufferings of John 
Whiting. . . . 1715. 


92 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

to pay tithes. The durance was not always of the harshest, depend¬ 
ing on the caprice of the individual gaoler, and at times Whiting 
was allowed to make a short visit to his home. When Monmouth, 
in 1682, was on his triumphal progress through the West, he visited 
Ilchester, “ with some thousands on horseback attending him, the 
country flocking to him and after him, the eyes of the nation being 
upon him and towards him, as the hope and head of the Protestant 
interest at that time. . . . We stood in the Friary-Gate as he 
rode through the town, and as he passed by, taking notice of so 
many Quakers together with their hats on, he stopped and put off 
his hat to us. And our Friend John Anderdon had a mind to 
speak to him and tell him, that we were prisoners for conscience’ 
sake, but had a stop in his mind, lest there should be an ill use made 
of it, in applying to him and making him too popular, the Court 
having a watchful eye over him : however, we could not but have 
a respect to him for his affability, and therefore were the more 
concerned for him when his fall came.” 1 

The gay young noble and the gentle Quaker were to meet 
once more, after their ways had parted widely. Whiting’s imprison¬ 
ment continued, but in 1685, when mercy was hoped for from 
the new king, “ the keepers grew careless of us, and gave us pretty 
much liberty, in hopes to get money by us, it being reported that 
Liberty of conscience was in the press so long, that it became a 
proverb that ‘ Liberty of conscience was in the press,’ it was so 
long a-coming out.” * Whiting was allowed to attend his Monthly 
Meeting at Hallatrow, where, on May 29th, news reached them 
that the Earl of Argyle had raised an insurrection in Scotland. A 
fortnight later came the more startling news of Monmouth’s 
arrival in Dorset, whereon Whiting, who was still at home, 
set out to return to prison, but at Wrington was stopped by the 
watch. 

“ He asked me whither I was riding ? I told him, southward 
which (though directly towards the Duke), without asking me 
any further question, he wished me a good journey, and so let me 
pass ; at which I could not but smile to myself, to see how easy 
they were to let any pass that way (for indeed the hearts of the 
people were towards him, if they durst have showed it). But that 
he might not think I was going to the Duke, I told him there was 
a fair at Somerton that day, and thither I was riding.” 3 Near 

1 Whiting, pp. 32-3. 2 Ibid., p. 140. 3 Ibid., p. 141. 


TEARS OF PERSECUTION 93 

Somerton was the home of a “ dear Friend,” Sarah Hurd, after¬ 
wards Sarah Whiting, and we may forgive the young Quaker if he 
turned aside from prison to visit her. She had strange news for 
him, “how some of the Duke’s men had been at Ivelchester, to 
free some of the Duke’s friends who came down from London to 
meet him and were taken up on suspicion, and imprisoned there ; 
and withal, freed all they found prisoners there on account of con¬ 
science, and among the rest, some of our Friends. But they took 
little notice or advantage of it, but went in and out as at other 
times.” 1 

Whiting stayed a few days at Somerton, and then went over 
to the Quarterly Meeting at Gregory-Stoke, at which they heard 
that the Duke and his army were at Taunton, six miles away, and 
the country flocked unto him.” At the Meeting he met with 
Sarah Hurd’s sister, the wife of one Scott, who “ dealt in horses, 
expecting to make advantage of them, which proved a snare to him.” 
He had gone to make his profit of the Duke, and the poor woman 
begged Whiting to go with her to Taunton and “ get him home.” 
Next day the rescue party went to Taunton, putting up at the Three 
Cups Inn, opposite the house where Monmouth and Lord Grey 
were having a hurried meal. They soon met Scott, but he was 
so committed to his horse-dealing that he refused to come home. 
The persistent wife “went over to speak with the Duke, to 
desire him not to take it amiss if her husband went home, for 
it was contrary to our persuasion to appear in arms, because 
we could not fight; and had a pretty deal of discourse with 
him (for she was a woman that could handle her tongue as well 
as most). The Duke seemed to take it well enough, and told her 
he did not desire that any should appear with him against their 
consciences.” 

Meanwhile Whiting waited outside the inn “observing pas¬ 
sages ” in the street, such as the fall of one of Monmouth’s local 
supporters into the kennel with “ his great high horse,” a disaster 
which the young Quaker thought “ a little ominous.” “ But,” 
he continues, “ I did not go out of my way to see the army, which 
lay in a field hard by the town, or any of them ; which I account 
a great preservation ; and soon after, the Duke and Lord Grey 
came forth and took horse (their horses being held in the street 
all the time) and rode down the street the same way as we were 
1 Whiting, p. 141. 


94 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

to go home. And two great guns were haled down before them, 
to plant (as they said) at the town’s end, it being reported that the 
Duke of Albemarle (Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Devon) 
was coming against them. So we took horse, and rode down after, 
and when we came to the town’s end, the street was so full of 
people, that I thought it impossible to get through the wood ; but 
asking one if we could ride by, he said, we might of one side. So 
I put forward till I was got into the middle of them, looking about 
me to see the Duke. I asked somebody, which was him, he showed 
me just at my right hand. So I stopped a little to take a view of 
him, and thought he looked very thoughtful and dejected in his 
countenance, and thinner than when I saw him four years before, 
as he passed through Ivelchester in his progress as aforesaid, that 
I hardly knew him again, and was sorry for him as I looked at him. 
I spoke a few words to him, which I do not mention out of vanity, 
but to show how narrowly I escaped a snare at that time, to 
the Lord’s protecting hand of providence I ascribe it in my 
preservation.” 

The Quakers got safely away from Taunton in spite of a false 
alarm that the King’s troops were at hand, and it is no surprise to 
read that “ next day I went to my Friend’s at Long Sutton, where, 
and at Somerton, I mostly stayed, till after the Duke’s defeat at 
Sedgemoor, being a time of great exercise with her, having several 
relations (not Friends) out in the Duke’s army, as three brothers- 
in-law, an uncle, and several kinsmen. And her brother Glisson, 
a Baptist, came and would have had me gone out also, and took 
up the sword till the work was over, which, if I had, I might have 
suffered as he did ; but through the mercy of God (whose holy 
name I magnify and adore in my preservation) I knew my place 
and principles better than so.” 

Even Long Sutton was not to escape the troubles of war. 
“ There came down the Queen’s Guards (as they said) under the 
Lord Churchill, and terror marched before them (for we could 
hear their horses grind the ground under their feet, almost a mile 
before they came), and ’twas reported, there were six houses to be 
burnt, of which my Friend S. H.’s was one . . . but through the 
Lord’s mercy was preserved. For when they came to the Cross 
near her house, they inquired for Captain Tucker’s (who was out 
with the Duke) and went and ransacked his house, cutting and 
tearing the beds, hangings, and furniture to pieces, shaking out 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 95 

the feathers and carrying away the bed-sticks and what else they 
cou , etting out the beer, wine, and cider about the cellar, setting 
fire to a barn that joined to the dwelling house, to set that on fire 
also, but being a stone-tiled house it did not burn that. . . . And 
the seventh day before the fight came down the Earl of Pembroke, 
with his Wiltshire troops of horse, and made dreadful work in the 
parish, taking several prisoners and threatening to hang some, to 
the terror and affrighting of the inhabitants.” 1 

But when Whiting has to describe the Terror after Sedgemoor, 
his indignation flames through his breathless sentences. 

Several of the country gentlemen (who hardly dared appear 
before) came about in pursuit of the Duke of Monmouth’s men, 
and Sir Edward Phillips (Judge of the Sessions, as aforesaid) came 
to my Friend s house at Long Sutton, and sat and slept in a chair, 
while his men went hunting about the fields to take men. And 
several were brought to my Friend’s door and sent to prison, sending 
them to prison in droves as if it had been to get their horses, for 
which some of them paid dear after King William came.” Scott 
the horse-dealer had his share of trouble. He passed the night 
after Sedgemoor in Weston Zoyland church with many other 
prisoners, in order to be hanged next day, as many were ; but 
he got out at the little north door, while the watch was asleep, and 
so escaped with his life, lying in cornfields by day and going by night 
till he got home, and so lay about till after the general pardon. But 
many were hanged in cold blood by that cruel, inhuman, bloody 
wretch Colonel Kirk, to the shame of mankind. And some were 
hung in chains naked, to the terror and shame of the country.” 2 
Whiting, as a prisoner on leave, felt some delicacy in meeting 
Sir Edward Phillips, and so “ lay innocently out in the garden ” 
during his visit. Afterwards he regretted his action, as savouring 
more of caution than of courage. 

His next step was eminently characteristic of the early Quaker. 

“ And soon after, seeing our bondage returning, and that I must 
submit to a prison again, and that it was the safest place as things 
were, I thought it better to go than to be sent thither or sent for, 
and so returned to Ivelchester, where the keepers began to look 

1 Whiting, pp. 140-3. 

J Page 144. Scott was dealt with for six years by Taunton Monthly Meeting, 
which received from him a full profession of repentance in 1692. He alleged 
“ inability to write ” as the chief reason for his delay ( J.F.H.S ., xii. Pt. I, p. 35). 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


96 

after their prisoners again, and to inquire for us, and to be very 
wicked to us when we came, calling us Rebels, Rogues, etc. though 
ever so clear.” The keepers did worse than call names, for in that 
sad July and August the thirty or more Quakers were all imprisoned 
in one small room, chained together in pairs. Whiting gives a 
plain-spoken account of the filth and discomfort they were forced 
to endure, and adds : 

“ Nor could we put off our clothes at night but from one arm 
and let them hang on the other, so that we could not turn, but lay 
mostly on the one side (being linked together), which was very 
tedious in the heat of summer. And that which troubled us much 
also was to answer people that came into the prison, what we were 
put in or hand-bolted for, thinking ’twas on the Duke of Mon¬ 
mouth’s account.” 1 

The September Assizes at Wells and Taunton, with the resulting 
massacres, roused his deep indignation. Some of his fellow- 
prisoners were carted thither. “ Most of them were condemned, 
even by wholesale. Jeffreys making what haste he could, not 
regarding how he threw away men’s lives, or run over them to 
hasten home to the King at Windsor to be made Lord Chancellor, 
having done the work he was sent about. . . . Many were 
executed, and their heads and quarters set up on trees, poles, etc. 
in most of the highways in this county, Dorset, and Devonshire, 
to the terror of travellers, being dreadful to behold ; and many 
transported, some wheedled out of their lives, and others terrified 
to confess in hopes of pardon, and then hanged.” Some were 
hanged, he says, “ for a little hay, or letting them [the rebels] have 
a morsel of victual.” 

Ilchester did not escape the Terror. “ There were eight 
executed, quartered, and their bowels burnt in the market place, 
before our prison window. I went out of the way, because I would 
not see it, but the fire was not out when I returned.” Some in 
the town were forced “ to hale about men’s quarters like horse 
flesh or carrion, to boil and hang them up as monuments of their 
cruelty and inhumanity, for the terror of others, which lost King 
James the hearts of many.” It was not until March 10, 1686, 
that James proclaimed a general pardon, which freed the Quakers 
and saved the remnant of Monmouth’s men who had been hiding 
in woods and ditches and “ might as well have been pardoned before 
1 Pages 145-6. 


TEARS OF PERSECUTION gy 

winter, if some had endeavoured it as much as they did to take away 
their lives.” 1 

The Meeting for Sufferings worked hard to protect West 
Country Friends. It kept in constant touch with them, and was 
active in procuring evidence of their innocence. In the autumn 
of 1685 the pages of its Minute Book are filled with copies of 
certificates to the King from officials or leading inhabitants of 
Somerset and Dorset villages, testifying to the “ clearness ” of 
Friends dwelling there during the “late rebellion.” “Carried 
themselves very civil and peaceable,” is the verdict of the constable 
and churchwardens of Conford. Vicars in some cases put their 
names to a similar testimony. In the autumn suspicion apparently 
spread to the eastern counties, and Suffolk and Essex Friends were 
forced to provide themselves with similar certificates. It was 
equally important to prove that some concerned in the rebellion 
were not attached to the Society, and twelve Friends testify that 
Thomas Paul of Ilminster had “ deserted Friends these many years, 
and being of a loose, bold, drunken behaviour and conversation 
and derided of his companions for the same.” 

On August 1st the prisoners at Ilchester and other Somerset 
Friends send a full reply to inquiries made by the Meeting for 
Sufferings. They use “as much brevity as the case would well 
permit,” but the letter can hardly be called concise. It deals with 
“ such as did appear in James Scot’s army,2 whereof some had arms 
and some not ; several of them, before the said insurrection their 
bad conversation had manifested them to be wholly gone from our 
Society (though they might retain the name of Quaker), even in 
the judgment of such as are not friends to us, as we believe. One 
of them for open and frequent drunkenness testified against and 
denied. Another for drunkenness and card-playing, and forsaking 

1 PP- I 5 2 ~ 3 - On his release Whiting married his “dear Friend,” and they 
later settled at Wrington. There his conscience was troubled by the public fasts 
appointed to be held in 1690 and 1691 in connection with the Irish War. Quakers, 
as a rule, kept their shops open on such occasions, but Whiting had to remonstrate 
with some in his neighbourhood who conformed and so weakened the collective 
testimony of the Society. He was himself accused of disloyalty “ though unjustly 
and undeservedly, being obliged to the Government for our liberty, and wishing 
well to the Protestant interest all the world over, though we could not join in wars 
and fightings or pray for shedding of blood, being taught to love enemies. For 
Christ came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them ” (p. 216). 

* Monmouth had married the heiress of Buccleuch, and had the title Duke of 
Buccleuch. The Buccleuchs were head of the clan of Scott. 

7 


98 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

our assemblies. Another married a wife and had a child before 
marriage. Another left his master for reproving him for his dis¬ 
orderly living. Another, an unstable man and outbreaker, borrowing 
and not paying again. . . . There was another rode in that army 
who pretty long time had forsaken the* Society and fellowship of 
the people called Quakers, because of sufferings. And another, 
that since he profest himself a Quaker hath been found fighting 
and quarrelling, and came not to meetings in time of sufferings.” 
All these (amongst whom “ brother Scott ” may be included) had 
been testified against by Friends for their offences in time past. A 
Quaker blacksmith, Roger Slocombe of Long Sutton, had been 
arrested by the King’s army on a charge of making scythe-weapons 
for the ill-armed rebels, but he had been able to clear himself. The 
most serious case was that of an undoubted Friend, Thomas Please, 
or Plaise, grocer and draper of Edington. It is sorrowfully con¬ 
fessed that he was active in “ J. Scot’s army ” and among the “ club¬ 
men ” in the Severn marshes. “Though he bore no arms, yet 
in some things he acted rashly and madwise to the great grief and 
trouble of the Quakers. . . . And as for the reason of some 
Friends walking in the army, we answer, some had horses taken away 
and some oxen pressed to draw their carriages, and so went to get 
them back again. And some, as they went to market or travelled 
about their occasions, did happen to come where the army was, 
and so came into it. Or sometimes when the army came near 
their dwellings some went out to see it. And we have not heard 
of any that walked in it otherwise than as before expressed.” 
Recently the Clerk of the Western Assizes had visited Ilchester, 
and told the Quakers there “ that on inquiry made he found but 
two of us amongst nine hundred, he having made inquiry at Bristol, 
Bath, Wells, Bridgewater, Taunton, and Exeter.” One of these 
two was a prisoner at Ilchester, a young ship’s surgeon, who had 
not fought but had followed his profession in the campaign. He 
had only frequented Friends’ meetings for a few months. It is 
to be hoped he was not one of those so horribly done to death in 
Ilchester market place. The letter, in conclusion, repeats that it 
was entirely against Friends’ will that any should concern them¬ 
selves in the war, “as being contrary to our peaceable principles 
and profession, and was and is their grief and trouble that any 
such did.” 

On August 8th George Whitehead, on behalf of the Meeting 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 9g 

for Sufferings, writes to thank them for “ such an ample and satis¬ 
factory account,” which shows how Friends in the West realize 
that Christ s Kingdom and Church must not be promoted by 
the arm of flesh nor built by might or armies, but by his spirit.” 
Those concerned in the rebellion are not worthy of the name of 
Quakers and “ by this very action of joining in this late disturbance ” 
are a dishonour and scandal to the Society. Although Thomas 
Please “ did not proceed so far as to take up arms,” yet in many 
ways he had greatly offended against Friends’ principles. It would 
be well for the Friends there to issue a paper in testimony against 
him and his actions in the rebellion, “ as one that has thereby turned 
aside from the Truth professed by us, and become false to our holy 
profession and excluded himself from our society and rendered himself 
unworthy the name of Quaker.” The testimony should make it 
clear that the Society as a whole has maintained its loyalty and 
peaceable behaviour, and it should be given out to magistrates and 
other persons of authority. On August 22nd Whitehead writes 
again, to acknowledge the receipt by the Meeting for Sufferings of 
a paper for presentation to the King and copies of local certificates 
of “ Friends’ innocency.” The meeting, however, has somewhat 
amended the paper, making it as “general and inoffensive ” as 
possible, their desire being “ that Friends may keep as clear as they 
can possibly from charging particular persons by name about this 
late rebellion, lest we seem to be their persecutors.” As to Thomas 
Please, “ we find nothing that will clear Friends of him, before 
this public occasion, wherein he has ipso facto gone from Truth 
and rendered himself no real Quaker, ceasing by the same fact to 
be of us or in society with us.” So their “very dear Friend,” 
George Whitehead, emphatically expresses the verdict of the Meeting 
for Sufferings. The testimony, as “ presented to authority ’ in its 
amended form, is preserved among the Bristol and Somerset Quarterly 
Meeting records. 1 

It states emphatically that all Friends in the district were warned 
“ not to concern themselves in this war,” and those who took part 
“are wholly disowned.” The Meeting for Sufferings completed 
the testimony by inserting a brief account of the episode at Ilchester 
gaol, when Friends refused to accept freedom at the hands of 
Monmouth’s men. 

1 See Meeting for Sufferings Minute Book, 1685, and Bristol MSS. (Bristol and 
Somerset Q.M., 1842), vols. i. and ii. in D., for these letters and testimonies. 


100 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

By this time some of the Friends concerned had reached London 
to bear their own testimony, and on August 28th George Whitehead 
reported to the Meeting that he had escorted them to the King’s 
Secretary, in order to bring under his notice the local certificates 
of innocence. The Secretary promised to communicate with the 
King, and declared (perhaps from experience of the treachery and 
cowardice then rife) “ that of all the people he knows in the world 
none has that love as Friends to each other, to cover their friends’ 
nakedness.” He did not, however, fulfil his promise, and the 
mission was entrusted to William Penn, whose influence with 
James had already won pardon for some of the unhappy West 
Countrymen condemned by Jeffreys. It was largely due to his 
efforts that many Friends were set free at the beginning of 1686. 
The next year came the Declaration of Indulgence, which the 
Quakers welcomed more heartily than the ordinary Dissenter, 
since they alone were willing to extend liberty of conscience to 
the Catholics Whiting expresses the Quaker attitude to the 
Declaration :— 

“ It did not come forth in the way we could have wished for, 
viz. by King and Parliament, which would have been more accept¬ 
able than granting it by virtue of the prerogative. ... We could 
do no less than accept of it now, and be thankful to God and the 
King for it, however granted, as that which was right in itself, and 
made way for the establishing of it in Parliament when King William 
came.” 1 

The Yearly Meeting sent an address of thanks to the King. 
The deputation was headed by Penn, who probably was mainly 
responsible for the wording of the address. While expressing 
gratitude for the grant of toleration, it added : “ We hope the good 
effects thereof . . . will produce such a concurrence from the 
Parliament as may secure it to our posterity in after times.” The 
King replied : “ Gentlemen, I thank you heartily for your address. 
Some of you know (I am sure you do, Mr. Penn) that it was always 
my principle that consciences ought not to be forced, and that all 
men ought to have the liberty of their consciences. And what 
I have promised in my declaration, I will continue to perform so 
long as I live. And I hope, before I die, to settle it so that after 
ages shall have no reason to alter it.” 2 

1 Whiting, p. 172, also Sewel, History, pp. 607-8. 

* Quoted by Janney, Life of Penn (1852), p. 296. 


IOI 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 

There is no doubt that, in spite of James’ earlier record as a 
persecutor in Scotland, Friends as a whole believed that this was 
a genuine expression of opinion. 

It is needless here to tell again how James’ one good deed led 
to his fall. On November 5> 1688, William of Orange landed 
at Tor Bay, James fled to France and, returning next year, could 
only find troops and subjects in Ireland, and in 1690 the Battle of 
the Boyne finally settled the question of the Protestant Succession. 
These years of war, which left so deep an impress on the political 
and religious life of Ireland, were a time of testing for Irish 
Friends. 1 They were hated as settlers of English origin by the 
one side, and suspected by the other for their neutrality and the 
shelter they gave to fugitives from both parties. In fact, their 
political interests and sympathies during the war must have been 
strangely divided. On the one hand they owed to James what 
liberty of conscience and worship they enjoyed. On the other 
the security of tenure for land held by most English Protestants 
in Ireland rested on the Act of Settlement of 1662, which the 
Catholic Irish naturally wished to repeal. The Dublin Parliament, 
during the war, actually ordered the restitution of estates to their 
original owners, but the order was only enforced in a few instances 
near the city. 

George Story, a chaplain in the English Army, declared in his 
history of the war that the Irish Quakers maintained a regimen 
for James at their own cost. 3 The slander has been revived by 
modern writers. It was emphatically denied in a memorial by 
the Society to the Irish Parliament of 1698, and there is no evidence 
to support it. One definite service, according to tradition, was 
rendered to the Jacobite cause by Francis Randall, a Wexford Friend. 
James, after the Battle of the Boyne, took refuge in his house. 
Randall fed him, supplied him with horses, and sent his son as a 
guide to Duncannon Fort, where a ship was waiting to convey the 
King to France. 

Even before the actual outbreak of war Friends suffered at the 

1 Statements in the following account for which no reference is given are due 
to the generous help of Isabel Grubb of Carrick-on-Suir, who put at the 
writer’s disposal not only her published article on “ Irish Friends and War ” 

(. Friends' Quarterly Examiner , May 1916), but also her unpublished researches 
into the contemporary records preserved at Eustace Street Meeting House, Dublin. 

* George Story was a brother of Thomas Story, who became a Friend in 
1691. 


102 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


hands of both parties. During the war they shared to the full in 
the miseries of Ireland. Letters pour over to the Meeting for 
Sufferings in the winter of 1689-90 describing their plight. William 
Williamson at Ballyhagan writes in December that the English 
Army “ take their corn, hay, oats, and provision, and pay them little 
for it,” and the Meeting decides to lay the case before the Secretary 
to the “ Duke of Scambergh ” (Schomberg) and other persons of 
influence. In April they are able to assure Irish Friends that 
William has taken cognisance of their case, and written to “ Duke 
Scumbergh.” Rumour, however, said that Friends had provisioned 
James’ army. Some, indeed (the Irish Friends reply), had been 
arrested on this charge on “ Rogues’ information, but so clear that 
they were set at liberty without examination.” In the districts 
held by the Irish troops matters were much worse. From Lurgan 
William Hooper sent a gloomy account in March 1690 (read in 
the Meeting on March 14th). “Friends, some well and many 
sick and dead, and many thousands of other people and army. 
Blanch Holden is lately dead, and others too tedious to mention 
here. The face of things looks very foul here, and nothing like 
to be but destruction and our exercises very great several ways. 
Famine seems at hand, little food and very dear, and all hindrances 
for further supply of food is made upon the country, that cannot 
get their seed put in the gound. ... We have amongst us money 
yet, but cannot have victuals for it. They are made so scarce by 
the army, so that many live poorly, and not for want of money.” 
The Meeting for Sufferings was generous in offers of help, but 
Irish Friends, in their fear of further plundering, refused all money 
while the war continued, though they welcomed the “ tender 
letters” sent over by the Meeting. In December 1690 the latter 
heard from John Workman of Cork “ that after he, his wife, and 
children had been stripped by the Irish rebels they burnt his 
house down,” and from Dublin come frequent reports that the 
“ Raparees ” are killing, plundering, and burning in the neigh¬ 
bourhood. 

There are still preserved among the Dublin records many 
reports, pathetically primitive in style and spelling, of the losses of 
country Friends. Nothing was too trifling to escape the plun¬ 
derers. A small farmer in Kildare wrote : “ Thay dug my 

potatoes and took all the profit of my garding. . . . Thay distroyed 
in garding ten hifes of bees worth £j. . . . Thay took my gloves 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 103 

and pokat hancarchar.” 1 2 3 4 “ Thay,” in this case, were the followers 

in the wake of the Irish army, whose depredations were especially 
felt in the south and centre after the Battle of the Boyne. In Ulster 
Friends suffered heavily from the billeting of William’s mercenaries ; 
furniture was destroyed, grain and crops commandeered or trampled 
into ruin, and stock carried away. Losses of beds, blankets, and 
linen sheets recur constantly in these lists. One Ulster meeting¬ 
house was turned into a brew-house by a band of Danish soldiers, 
and the solid wooden forms served them for fuel. 

And besides all this, at the return of the armies to winter 
quarters, “ the country was filled with violent sickness, which took 
away many of all sorts, and several that were driven away from 
their habitations, and had lost most of their substance, tho’ they 
yet had left wherewithal to support nature, seemed to grieve at 
their losses and low estates, and so languished and died, which 
Friends were greatly supported over, having an eye to the Lord 
who not only gives, but takes, or suffers to be taken away.” 2 

The loss of horses made travelling difficult, while contending 
armies also cut off communication. For twelve months Dublin 
Friends seem to have been isolated from all intercourse with Ulster 
or England. 

A belated Epistle from the Dublin Half-Yearly Meeting, 
written in November 1690, but not received till December 1691, 
estimated the losses of Friends in Leinster alone at more than ten 
thousand pounds, “besides the quarter of soldiers.” In 1692 it 
was computed that the total loss of Friends through the nation was 
a hundred thousand pounds .3 In that year Irish Friends at last 
accepted the aid of their English brethren, who sent them about 
£1,800, while £100 came on their behalf from the small com¬ 
munity in Barbadoes .4 During these three years of suffering the 
Society in Ireland organized relief for its members. Friends driven 
from home were re-established at the earliest opportunity, and in 
the meantime welcomed by other groups of Friends. 

1 The Report of the Carnegie Commission which inquired into the conduct 
of the Balkan Wars (1911-13) contains many similar peasant lists ({vide Report, 
p. 139, for both “hives” and “kitchen-garden”). 

2 Wight and Rutty, History of the Rise and Progress of the Quakers in Ireland, 
1751, p. 165. 

3 Ibid., p. 158. 

4 The National (Half-Yearly) Meeting^records that a letter of thanks was 
sent to Barbadoes “ but a French privateer^took it.” A second arrived safely. 


THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURT 


104 

The meetings at Dublin and Cork provided houses and clothing 
for Friend refugees and schooling for their children. In the former 
meeting Friends were warned not to apply for relief from any other 
funds besides those raised in the Society. 

There was also opportunity to help other sufferers. At Limerick, 
Dublin, and other places, Friends supplied the prisoners taken from 
William’s army with food and clothing, “so that many of them 
said when at liberty, if the Quakers had not been there they had 
been starved to death.” 

Both at Limerick and Cork, Friends endured all the dangers 
and privations of the siege. Joseph Pike records that the latter 
city was about to be stormed when the Duke of Grafton, the leader 
of the attack, was killed, and later a capitulation was arranged on 
terms. This probably saved the lives of the Quakers for the 
besiegers believed that all Protestants were in prison, and intended 
to put to the sword everyone found in the streets and houses. “ But 
Friends were at liberty, the Irish believing there was no danger 
from us.” 1 

Meetings were regularly held, though Friends travelled to them 
over roads infested by robbers. “ In worship no molestation,” 
wrote John Burnyeat, although in many places a blank in the 
records shows that the business meetings were discontinued for 
months, and in some cases for two years. 2 When James’ responsible 
officers were at hand Friends were in better case, “ those that were 
in Government then seemed to favour us,” and they were able to 
extend some protection to their fellow Protestants. Wight’s 
History gives many instances, both of sufferings and of providential 
escapes, adding : “ Tho’ in those times many of the English neigh¬ 
bours fell by the hands of those bloody murderers, yet we know 
but of four, that we could own to be of our Society in all the nation, 
that fell by the hands of cruelty, and two of them too forwardly 
ventured their lives when they were lost.” 

Of these, the names of three have been preserved. Thomas 
Greer was killed by a stray shot fired into his home by night, James 
Waseley was killed in trying to recover his stolen cattle, and John 
Barnes died of wounds during the second siege of Limerick. Four 
Friends are known to have taken up arms. “ Three of these were 

1 Joseph Pike, Journal , pp. 49-54. 

» From T. Wight’s MS. it is also clear that these meetings for discipline were 
very irregularly held. 


YEARS OF PERSECUTION 105 

officially ‘condemned,’ for having acted ‘scandalous to the principles 
of truth by us professed and our known practice since we were a 
people. At least one of them publicly repudiated his action 
afterwards, while of another it is recorded four years later that he 
had been out of unity for many years.’ In the fourth case, that 
of a man who took a commission in the English Army, after much 
serious and lengthy consideration he was told he ‘could not be 
owned ’ by the Society.” * 

William Edmundson’s Journal* gives the fullest picture of 
the hardships endured by individual Friends. Edmundson was a 
Westmorland man who, after leaving the Parliamentary army 
in 1651 5 migrated to Ireland, and on a visit to England in 1653 
was convinced by the preaching of James Naylor. He settled as 
a farmer at Rosenallis, near Mountmellick, and as early as 1685 
led a deputation from the district to Tyrconnell at Dublin, begging 
for protection from the plunder of the Irish troops, which was 
grudgingly granted. Edmundson’s own influence was more 
effective : before they left for Ulster the troops begged his for¬ 
giveness, and some of their officers, with whom he made interest 
for Friends in the North (“for they were not in arms”) promised 
to protect them, and in some measure kept their promises. As 
the troubles increased he was constrained to take a step which some 
modern critics have considered involved a breach of the Quaker 
testimony against war. “Now calamity increased, the Raparees 
on one hand plundered and spoiled many of the English ; and on 
the other hand the army marching and quartering took what they 
pleased from us, and our families were their servants to make what 
we had ready for them, and it looked like a sudden famine, there 
was such great destruction. Now I considered the way to prolong 
time, that the English might eat part of their own, was to get a 
guard of Irish soldiers in that quarter which lay open to all mischief. 
So I went to Dublin and got an order from the Duke of Tyrconnell 
for one Captain Francis Dunn and his company to stay with us, 
and protect that quarter against thieves, Raparees, and other vio¬ 
lence.” This mended matters somewhat for the time, but when 
the pressure of the war led to the removal of the guard the Irish 
began their plundering again, and “ the Protestants with us went 
fast to wreck in their substance.” 


1 The quotation is from an unpublished paper by Isabel Grubb. 

* A Journal of the Life of . . . William Edmundson , 1715, pp. 113-36. 


106 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

It does not appear that this request for a guard went beyond 
the use of “ the magistrates’ sword,” so often expressly upheld by 
the early Quakers. Dunn and his men were acting as police to 
check the excesses of their own supporters. During 1689, Edmund- 
son more than once visited Dublin to lay the sufferings of the 
Protestants before James, and was, at least, received with courtesy. 
His own house was a city of refuge to many of his Protestant 
neighbours, “ thinking themselves safer there than elsewhere.” 
The turn of the tide at first brought little advantage. “ At the 
Boyne fight, the Irish army being beaten, many of them fled our 
road, and plundered many in our parts. They plundered my house 
several times, and we were in great jeopardy of our lives. . . . 
Now was violence let loose and no Government to make address 
to ; the English army did not come near us for some time, and 
to look outwardly, we were exposed to the wills of cruel, blood¬ 
thirsty men.” 

The English troops, on their arrival, carried off five hundred 
head of cattle and horses, and took prisoner Captain William Dunn 
and his sons, including the former protector of the Edmundsons. 
One of the sons they prepared to hang, and the Dunn family appealed 
in their distress to William Edmundson, who rode after the soldiers 
“ as swift as I could, having regard to my promise of neighbour¬ 
hood.” His story of the rescue throws a vivid light on the confusion 
of those times. 

“When the Irish neighbours saw me ride after them, many 
followed in expectation to get their cattle and people released. I 
rode four miles before I overtook them. When I came near, the 
two captains, perceiving who it was (for they knew me before), 
made an halt, and met me. I reasoned the matter with them, 
and told them of the King’s proclamation, and how it would not 
be the soldiers, but they who commanded that must answer the 
injury done, and that it was a reflection upon the King’s promise, 
as well as a great reflection upon the English nation. . . . The 
two captains seemed willing to release all, if the soldiers could be 
prevailed on. I rode with them to the head of the party, but they 
were very angry, would needs have killed the Irish that followed 
for their cattle. Whereupon I quitted my horse, and ventured 
my life amongst the rude soldiers to save the Irish, and with much 
ado I, with the two captains’ assistance, got them moderated, on 
condition to give them a small part of the cattle to release the rest. 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 107 

Then I mounted my horse, and sought out the man whom they 
had stripped for hanging. When I found him, I threw him my 
riding-coat to put on, and desired one of the captains to assist me 
in finding of him that had taken his clothes. When we had found 
him, I. reasoned the matter with the captains and soldiers, telling 
them, it was unmanly and not like a soldier to strip men in that 
manner, for I had been a soldier myself, and would have scorned 
such a base action. Besides it might be a precedent to the Irish 
to strip the English.” 

When the English withdrew to winter quarters, the Raparees 
took up the work in turn. In November 1690, Edmundson attended 
the Half-Yearly Meeting at Dublin, to which many Friends came, 
in spite of the perilous roads. “We had a heavenly, blessed, 
powerful meeting, and Friends were more than ordinary glad one 
of another in the Lord Jesus, who had preserved us alive through 
so many dangers, to see one another’s faces again.” He himself 
had need of all the spiritual help he received, for shortly after his 
return a midnight band of plunderers attacked and burnt his house, 
and carried him away with his two sons, all three scantily clothed 
to meet the rigours of a winter night. At a mock trial they were 
sentenced to death, although the marauders admitted that Edmundson 
had protected men of both parties from the wrongs of their opponents. 
As they prepared to blindfold him the old soldier told them it was 
needless, “he could look them in the face and was not afraid to 
die.” But in this crisis a band of Irish soldiers, led by one of the 
Dunns, whom he had saved before, came up and rescued the three 
Quakers. Dunn, however, treated them harshly. They were 
dragged, still starving and half-clad, to Athlone, and there thrown 
into prison, although several of the Catholic gentry spoke in their 
favour. Happily, other Friends in the neighbourhood were able 
to supply their necessities and at last to obtain their release. When 
Edmundson reached home it was to find that his farm and tan-pits 
were ruined and his wife had suffered the very fate of which he 
had warned the English marauders, having been stripped and driven 
from home in another night attack. She died a few months later 
as a result of the shock and exposure. 

The whole story is typical of the anarchy which ravaged Ireland 
in these years. It is perhaps natural that Wight’s History , written 
in the reign of William III, should slur over the injuries received 
by Friends at the hands of the English army, but from the con- 


108 THE SEVENTEENTH pENTURT 

temporary records it is clear that these were severe. The grim touch 
with which Edmundson ends his story shows how much blood had 
drenched Ireland in the three years’ struggle. “ Now, as soon 
as the ways were opened to travel I went into the North, to visit 
Friends, and some Friends accompanied me. As we went by 
Dundalk, there were many bones, and tufts of green grass that 
had grown from carcasses of men, as if it had been heaps of dung.” 

Yet the final result of these sad times, in the view of the Society’s 
Irish historian, was that “Truth gained ground and Friends came 
more into esteem than formerly in the minds of many, both rulers 
and people, through their innocent, wise deportment in the fear of 
God.” In the years immediately following the war (as is stated 
in T. Wight’s original MS. of 1698) Dublin Friends found such 
numbers frequenting their meetings for worship that they were 
constrained to build a large meeting-house in Sycamore Alley, on 
the site of the present Eustace Street building. It was probably 
the characteristic, noted in the same document as “ Friends keeping 
their places in the midst of dangers ” (displayed not for the first or 
the last time in the Society’s history) which drew others to seek 
strength and confidence from the same source. 

In England, under William III, Friends enjoyed a large measure 
of toleration, and were fast settling down into quiet respectability, 
although before the seventeenth century ended they had one more 
opportunity of expressing their “ clearness ” of all rebellious designs. 
In February 1695/6 a Jacobite plot for the murder of the King 
was discovered. The result was an outburst of loyalty, which took 
shape in a voluntary “ Association ” to swear loyalty to William 
and to promise him armed protection. This oath was popularly 
used as a test of loyalty, and Friends came into some difficulty. 
On February 28th the Meeting for Sufferings ordered John White- 
head and George Whitehead to draw up “ A Paper relating to 
Friends’ innocence from plots and all murderous designs.” This 
was approved next month and, when printed, distributed to country 
meetings. In April “ Thomas Lower reports that the paper 
declaring Friends’ innocency from plots, etc., was the 8th instant 
delivered the King by the Friends appointed, and he returned them 
thanks for the same and wished them good success in the House 
of Lords. 1 Since which they understand the King has read it, 

1 Where a Bill was in progress giving Quakers the right of Affirmation in 
certain cases. 


TEJRS OF PERSECUTION 109 

and expressed himself well-satisfied therewith.” In the paper 
Friends “ solemnly and sincerely declare ” that they have always 
believed “ the setting up and putting down Kings and Governments 
is God’s peculiar prerogative, for causes best known to himself,* 
and that it is not our work or business to have any hand or con¬ 
tinuance therein, nor to be busybodies in matters above our 
station. . . . And according to this, our ancient and innocent 
testimony, we often have given forth our testimony, and now do, 
against all plotting and conspiracies and contriving insurrections 
against the King or the Government, and against all treacherous, 
barbarous, or murderous designs whatsoever, as works of the devil 
and darkness. . . . And whereas we, the said people, are required 
to sign the said Association, we sincerely declare that our refusing 
so to do is not out of any disaffection to the King or Government, 
nor in opposition to his being declared rightful and lawful King 
of these realms, but purely because we cannot for conscience’ sake 
fight, kill, or revenge either for ourselves or any man else. 

“ And we believe that the timely discovery and prevention of 
the late barbarous design and mischievous plot against the King 
and Government and the sad effects it might have had, is an eminent 
mercy from Almighty God, for which we and the whole nation 
have great cause to be humbly thankful.” j 

William III always showed friendliness towards the Quakers, 
even to those, like Penn, who were openly favourable to his pre¬ 
decessor. Gilbert Latey, his watchmaker, a London Friend, was 
on intimate terms with his royal employer. On their side Friends 
cherished real gratitude to the first ruler who was able to establish 
a workable, even though incomplete, system of religious toleration. 
They shared to the full the joy of other Englishmen at the Peace 
of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, ancl the Yearly Meeting on this 
occasion addressed the King with an expression of thankfulness 
that God had “graciously turned the calamity of war into the 
desired mercy of peace.” 

1 This became a favourite formula much employed by American Friends in 
the Revolutionary War. 
















PJRT II 


THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 


There is a spirit, which I feel, that delights to do no evil nor to revenge 
any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own to 
the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out 
all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It 
sees to the end of all temptations : As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives 
none in thought to any other : If it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground 
and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, 
its life is everlasting love unfeigned, and [it] takes its kingdom with entreaty 
and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone 
it can rejoice, though none else regard it or can own its life. It is con¬ 
ceived in sorrow and brought forth without any to pity it: nor doth it 
murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; 
for with the world’s joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken : 
I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places 
in the earth; who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal 
holy life .—Dying Words of James Naylor , 1660. 


CHAPTER IV 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 

I653-64 


The seventeenth century might be called the Age of Tracts. The 
possessor of any view on any subject, political or religious or social, 
felt bound to give it to the world, his opponents felt bound to combat 
it, and despite the intermittent censorship of the time, the result 
was a snowstorm of hastily written and hastily printed pamphlets 
which in some degree took the place, in the free expression of 
opinion, of the modern newspaper and review. 

The Quakers contributed their full quota to the mass ; many 
of the weighty folio volumes entitled the “ Works ” of one or 
another early Friend consist mainly of reprinted pamphlets, and 
large numbers survive as separate tracts, often anonymous. Amongst 
those of the early period which deal with the questions of peace 
and war, those now to be discussed deserve consideration, either 
from the standing of their writers or from their own intrinsic 
interest, or for both reasons. They fall into three classes. Some, 
accepting the soldier’s profession as a necessity of the time, appeal 
to the Army of the Parliament to use its power on the side of 
righteousness ; others set forth “ the life and power that take away 
the occasion for wars ” ; others explain and vindicate the Quaker 
attitude against the misunderstandings of suspicion or enmity. In 
Fox’s own writings all these positions may be found. His Epistles 
are direct personal appeals to individuals or groups. As early as 
1653 he issued an exhortation to “all soldiers, governors, and 
officers” to refrain from persecution, to follow the inner light, 
and to take the Baptist’s words as their guide of conduct. 1 In a 
similar strain (probably in 1657) he addressed “ George Monk and 
the army in Scotland.” 2 But in the letters to Friends already 


1 Swarthmore MSS., ii. 66. 


2 Six'arthmore MSS., ii. 25. 

113 


8 


11 4 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TEST 1 M 0 NT 

quoted, and in many others he is emphatic on the peaceable nature 
of true Christianity. “The Peace-maker” (he wrote in 1652) 
“ hath the kingdom, and is in it; and hath the dominion over the 
Peace-breaker, to calm him in the power of God.” 1 Again, in 
1657 : “ For all dwelling in the light that comes from Jesus, it 
leads out of wars, leads out of strife, leads out of the occasion of wars, 
and leads out of the earth up to God, out of earthly mindedness 
into heavenly mindedness, and brings your minds to be in heaven.” 2 
At the time of the militia levies in 1659 his advice was clear. “ As 
for the rulers, that are to keep peace, for peace’s sake and the 
advantage of truth, give them their tribute. But to bear and carry 
carnal weapons to fight with, the men of peace (which live in that 
which takes away the occasion of wars) they cannot act in such 
things, under the several powers ; but have paid their tribute,” 
and in so doing, he adds, Friends may better claim their liberty. 3 
All war and persecution is a departure from allegiance to Christ. 
The Jews, indeed, fought against the heathen, but Christ came to 
put an end to the Jewish outward types. “In the apostate-Chris- 
tians’ times, they are crying up the outward sword again,” 4 and each 
Church is ready to propagate its doctrines by force and to settle 
all disputes by war. “ Forgive us as we forgive them, cry Papists, 
cry Episcopal, cry Presbyterians, and Baptists and Independents 
. . . and then, like a company of senseless men, without under¬ 
standing, fall a-fighting one with another about their trespasses 
and debts.” 5 

The Declaration of January 1660/1 is definitely addressed to 
the public as a vindication of the Society. In 1684, after the 
Insurrection Plot for which Algernon Sidney and Lord William 
Russell paid with their lives, the “ Morning meeting ” 6 reprinted 
the Declaration “as the unchangeable and assured testimony of 
Friends against all conspiracy and violence.” At its first publica¬ 
tion it was sold in the streets as a broad-sheet under the title, “ A 

1 Fox, Epistles, p. n. 

2 Epistles, p. 108, vide also Svoarthmore MSS., ii. 95. 

3 Epistles, p. 137. 

4 Ibid., p. 103. 

5 Epistles, p. 132, and Swarthmore MSS., ii. 103. 

6 The Second Day Morning Meeting, formally set up in 1673, was composed 
of leading Friends who were ministers, and amongst other functions acted as 
a censor and corrector of Friends’ writings. In 1901, it was amalgamated with 
the Meeting • for Sufferings. In 1684, Penn’s intimacy with Sidney may have 
brought Friends under suspicion. 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 115 

Declaration from the harmless and innocent people of God called 
Quakers, against all sedition, plotters, and fighters in the world : 
for removing the ground of jealousy and suspicion from magistrates 
and people concerning wars and fightings. Presented to the King 
upon the 21st day of the nth month 1660.” 1 The document is 
signed by Fox, Hubberthorn, and ten other Friends. It is lengthy 
and contains repetitions, but its tenor is unmistakable. Although 
there are frequent quotations from Scripture, the principle of peace 
which the writers proclaim is derived not from texts as its ultimate 
warrant, but from the ever-present and ever-teaching Spirit of 
Christ. 

First they set forth their testimony. “ Our principle is, and 
our practice always has been, to seek peace and ensue it ; to follow 
after righteousness and the knowledge of God ; seeking the good 
and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all.” War 
arises from the evil passions of man’s lower self: the Friends have 
utterly abjured all use of outward weapons. “ This is our testimony 
to the whole world.” But the objection has been raised that this 
may be only a temporary opinion : if “the Spirit move,” Friends 
(as Ranters have been in the past) may be found among plotters and 
fighters. The answer of the Declaration gives no uncertain sound. 

“ The Spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not change¬ 
able, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to 
move us to it, and we certainly know and do testify to the world, 
that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us into all truth, will never 
move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, 
neither for the Kingdom of Christ nor for the kingdoms of this 
world.” 

For further proof they can point to their admitted record in 
the past. “ This we can say to the world, we have wronged no 
man, we have used no force nor violence against any man : we have 
been found in no plots, nor guilty of sedition. When we have been 
wronged, we have not sought to revenge ourselves ; we have not 
made resistance against authority ; but whenever we could not 
obey for conscience sake, we have suffered the most of any people 
in the nation. We have been counted as sheep for the slaughter, 

1 There are various editions in D. of the 1660 tract, which differ somewhat 
from that of 1684, quoted in EUwood’s edition of Fox’s Journal. One, D. 575, 13, 
is considered by Norman Penney to belong to the first (confiscated) edition. 
Another has a paragraph complaining of the “ violent and unjust taking away the 
whole first impression.” 


116 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

persecuted and despised, beaten, stoned, wounded, stocked, whipped, 
imprisoned, haled out of synagogues, cast into dungeons and noisome 
vaults, where many have died in bonds, shut up from our friends, 
denied needful sustenance for many days together, with other the like 
cruelties.” They have never resisted the violence of their oppo¬ 
nents. “ It is not an honour to manhood or nobility to run upon 
harmless people, who lift not up a hand against them, with arms 
and weapons.” 

The charge of treason has been brought against them under 
every form of Government. “ Our meetings were stopped and 
broken up in the days of Oliver, under pretence of plotting against 
him ; in the days of the Committee of Safety we were looked upon 
as plotters to bring in King Charles ; and now our peaceable meetings 
are termed seditious.” Yet the spirit of love breathes through the 
paper. “ Never shall we lift up hand against any that thus use 
us ; but desire the Lord may have mercy upon them, that they 
may consider what they have done.” 

Fox says that the Declaration was drafted by Hubberthorn and 
himself. How much its style and coherency owed to the former 
may be seen from a later manuscript testimony drawn up by Fox 
during his imprisonment at Lancaster in 1664, 1 and afterwards 
signed by Margaret Fell and other imprisoned Friends. A copy 
sent to Colonel Kirkby, the chief of the magistrates who had com¬ 
mitted Fox to gaol, has been preserved in the Record Office. The 
paper is drawn up under fifteen heads, but the testimony against 
war and plots and the testimony against oaths are almost inextricably 
entangled. Its chief interest is the very definite statement of the 
Quakers’ political attitude. “ I saw by the power of God the King 
was brought into the land, which brought down a great deal of 
that which we do declare against, and suffered by that hypocrisy. 
So I and we do say that he ought to have his. right and all men. . . . 
So our allegiance lies in this that we would not have the King 
hurt, and we would have him have his right, and we deny all that 
take up arms against him, we first deny it in ourselves and then 
in others.” Some of us, he continues, have known “ a time of the 
spear and sword,” but now they are broken. He also develops a 
favourite theme in the argument that the weapons and wars of the 
Jewish dispensation were a type of the spiritual weapons and contest 
described in Ephesians vi. 11-17. 

1 Vide Chapter III, p. 70. 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 


117 

This doctrine of submission to established authority, in so far 
as that authority did not invade the realm of conscience, was one 
cause of the aloofness of the majority of Quakers from political 
matters in days when the ruling powers of one decade were the 
rebels of the next. Its resemblance to the high Tory doctrine of 
passive obedience was only superficial, for the Quaker’s obedience 
was given to the de facto Government and he never plotted on behalf 
of the deposed power. 

Yet, in spite of this non-political bias, Quakers, like other 
pamphleteers, were prodigal of advice and admonition in the troubled 
year 1659, when the Army threatened to rule. Perhaps the words 
most relevant to the situation were those written by George Fox 
the Younger in a little tract entitled, “ This is for you who are 
called the Commonwealth men both in the Army and Parliament 
to read.” 1 The power of the sword, he says, was committed to 
them for the specific purpose of establishing the liberties and freedom 
of the nation and destroying tyranny, “ and not to make a trade 
of using your swords to enrich yourselves by them. . . . This 
spirit if it ruled you, would make you as freely willing then to 
lay down your places and swords as ever any of you were made 
free to take them up, and then to fall upon improving the creation 
in the fear and wisdom of the Lord, and to be content to enjoy an 
equal proportion and share of the liberty (with your fellow-creatures) 
which you have fought for ; and if it were thus, then you might 
truly be called the Commonwealth men, or servants.” If they 
desire to continue as an army, the temptation will come not to use 
their power to re-establish complete order and liberty lest your 
trade should fail.” 

This sober reasoning by their old colleague may have influenced 
the temper of the troops ; they displayed the very spirit he desired 
when, upon the Restoration, they submitted to disbandment, and 
returned quietly to their old civilian occupations. Of all that 
they had done for England’s welfare and liberty nothing is more 
to their credit than that they voluntarily laid down their power 
when they perceived that they had begun to abuse it.” 2 

There was a general admission on the part of early Quakers 
that the majority of the Commonwealth soldiers were inspired by 

* In D. The writer was so-caUed because “ younger ” in the faith than 
George Fox, though not in years. 

» G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, p 330. 


118 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 


high motives, and as many of the Society’s members were recruited 
from the ranks of the Army they had had opportunities of judging 
its character. George Fox the Younger, in another paper addressed 
to the Army in 1659, sa y s : “The Lord appeared with you in 
the field, giving you mighty victories over your enemies, that so 
he might make way for his living truth to be spread, which was 
then stirring in his people.” Again : “ O Army ! In which 

was I several years together, in which time I saw the mighty 
appearance of God with thee, even in the time of the outward war, 
and when the war was ended I left thee in obedience to the appear¬ 
ance of the living God unto me, who . . . hath brought me into 
the life of that Truth which I, and many of you in the Army professed 
in words.” 1 

A different and more dangerous view of the duties of the English 
soldier was uttered by Edward Burrough in that same year. The 
episode is curious, and deserves some notice. 

Edward Burrough and Samuel Fisher were two of the first 
Friends to carry their message across the seas. In the spring of 
1659 they visited Dunkirk, tried to hold some intercourse with 
the religious seminaries there, and had meetings with the English 
garrison. Like Paul, Burrough’s spirit was stirred within him by 
the sight of a city given up to what seemed to him idolatry, and 
at his departure he addressed the soldiers in an Epistle 2 which gave 
men of war a worthier place in the divine economy than other 
Friends allowed. After exhorting them to observe their duty in 
their military station, he continued : “ What do you know but the 
Lord may have some good work for you to do, if you be faithful 
to him ? . . . The Lord hath owned and honoured our English 
Army, and done good things for them in these nations in our age, 
and the Lord once armed them with the spirit of courage and zeal 
against many abominations, and gave them victory and dominion 
over much injustice and oppression and cruel laws.” But at last 
they were overcome by ambition and self-indulgence. Let them 
recover their old spirit and take no rest “ till you have visited Rome, 
and inquired after and sought out the innocent blood that is buried 
therein, and avenged the blood of the guiltless through all the 
dominions of the Pope : the blood of the just it cries through Italy 
and Spain, and the time is come that the Lord will search it, and 

I Writings of George Fox the Younger , London, 1665, pp. 12 and 68-70. 

* Works, pp. 537-40. 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 


119 

seek it out, and repay it ; and it would be to your honour to be 
made use of by the Lord in any degree.” It was, he added, the 
Lord’s own work to bring men into the spirit of true religion, but 
“ yet he may work by you, to break down the briars and thorns 
and the rocks and hills that have set themselves against the Lord.” 
Therefore the officers should treat their men with justice and mercy, 
and the men must be dutiful and obedient to their officers, that 
“ having no sin lying upon your conscience then shall you face your 
enemies with courage and not fear death.” The Scriptural quota¬ 
tions and allusions in this fervent appeal are drawn from the Apoca¬ 
lypse and the Prophets, rather than from the teaching of Christ 
and the Apostles. The preacher himself felt that the passage in 
which he counselled the soldiers to turn for guidance to the light 
of Christ within lacked congruity with the earlier part of the 
Epistle, for he made an attempt to reconcile reliance on the outward 
sword with the spiritual doctrine of the Quakers. “ And yet 
though such a victory would be honourable unto you, yet there 
is a victory more honourable, to wit, the victory over sin and death 
and the devil in yourselves. . . . Your work hath been, and may 
be, honourable in its day and season, but he hath a work more 
honourable to work after you ; that is, to destroy the kingdom of 
the devil and the ground of wars.” The other side of his nature, 
however, triumphs again in the final exhortation to seek “the 
glory of the Lord and the freedom of the oppressed ; and in that 
you will be blessed and prosper, till you have set up your standard 
at the gates of Rome.” In this year, 1659, Fox wrote : “ Friends, 
take heed of blending yourselves with the outward powers of the 
earth,” and rebuked the religions that were ready to fight about 
religions, and “kill like the heathen about their gods.” Sewel, 
writing his History a generation later, was perturbed by the martial 
tone of Burrough’s Epistle, which he tried to explain on the ground 
that Burrough was anxious “ not to give them too rough a brush, 
but to meet them somewhat in their own way,” while the Quaker 
teaching was emphasized “ lest any should think he was for the 
bearing of arms and not for harmlessness or non-resistance. 1 

But Burrough can hardly be cleared from a confused attempt 
to make the best of both worlds—to use the weapons of war while 
praising the gospel of peace. The attempt has been made in all 
ages by many professing Christians, but the inconsistency is most 
1 Sewel, History , Book V. 


120 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 


manifest in a Quaker. It is perhaps worth noting that his private 
letters, preserved in the Swarthmore collection, show a fondness for 
military metaphor. His fit of militarism, however, was shortlived, 
for next year he stated the Quaker position with no lack of clearness. 

In “ A Visitation of Love to the King and those called 
Royalists,” 1 he readily admits that some Quakers had been soldiers 
in the army of the Parliament, “ and that principle, which formerly 
led some in action to oppose oppression and seek after reformation 
we never have denied or shall deny, but that principle is still justified, 
though we are now better informed than once we were. For 
though we do now more than ever oppose oppression and seek after 
reformation, yet we do it not in that way of outward warring and 
fighting with carnal weapons and swords, . . . never since we 
were a people.” And in “ A Vindication of the People of God 
called Quakers,” 2 he answers the accusation which confounds them 
with the Fifth Monarchists. “ As for killing all the wicked, this 
is another false charge ; for it is not our principle to war against 
the persons of any men, and kill them with carnal weapons, about 
Church, and ministry, and religion, as the Papists and Protestants 
do one with another ; ... we would have men’s wickedness killed, 
and their persons saved, and their souls delivered ; and this is the 
war we make.” 3 

A curious fact, not very easy to explain, is the similarity between 
this Epistle of Burrough and an anonymous tract, by some attributed 
to Fox, which also belongs to the year 1659. This is an eight- 
page pamphlet, entitled “ To the Councill of Officers of the Armie 
and the Heads of the Nation, and for the inferior officers and souldiers 
to read.” 4 It is signed “ F. G.,” but the copy at the Friends’ 
Reference Library is endorsed in pencil in a later hand “ G. F. 1659,” 
and at some time in the eighteenth century it was bound up in a 
volume of tracts mainly by Fox. 

1 Burrough’s Works, 1672, p. 671. * Ibid., p. 748. 

3 He has courage to champion even the Anabaptists. “ I cannot believe they 
are of that spirit of murder and tyranny, etc., as is reputed by your informer, 
though their judgment in every case, neither about civil nor spiritual things I 
dare not justify.” Still earlier, in 1655, he had written to the “ poor desolate 
soldiers ” in Ireland of the Light that “ reproves you in secret of violence, and will 
teach you not to make war, but to preserve peace on the earth ” {Works, p. 93). 

4 The tract is i. 56 in D. Miss Brailsford discusses it in an article in the 
Contemporary Review (November 1915, “Cromwell’s Quaker Soldiers”), but 
attributes it to the year 1657. The allusion to New England makes this date 
impossible, and the writer mentions the Quaker evictions from the Army only as 
one incident of a long persecution. 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 


121 


Opening abruptly, “O Friends, do not rule with your own 
reason ! ” the writer goes on to plead against oppression and per¬ 
secution of all kinds. Friends have suffered “these seven or eight 
years ” in England, and now they are enduring fresh cruelties under 
“ the new Inquisition in New England.” An animated description 
is given of the persecution of Friends in their worship and in private 
life. “ And many valiant captains, soldiers, and officers have been 
put out of the Army by sea and land, of whom it hath been said 
among you, that they had rather have had one of them than seven 
men, and could have turned one of them to seven men, who because 
of their faithfulness to the Lord God, being faithful towards him, 
it may be for saying Thou to a particular [single person], and for 
wearing their hats have been turned out from amongst you.” Then, 
turning to the Army, which had acted as the agent of persecution, 
the writer declares : “ Had you been faithful to the power of the 
Lord God which first carried you on, you had gone into the midst 
of Spain ... to require the blood of the innocent that there had 
been shed ; and commanded them to have offered up their inquisi¬ 
tion to you, and gone over them as the wind, and knock’t at Rome’s 
gates before now, and trampled deceit and tyrants under, and de¬ 
manded the Pope himself, and have commanded him to have offered 
up all his torture-houses, and the racks and Inquisition (which you 
should have found as black as hell), and broke up the bars and gates 
where all the just blood has been shed, which should have been 
required. . . . And then you should have sent for the Turk’s 
Idol, the Mahomet, and plucked up idolatry, and cried up Christ, 
the only King and Lord. . . . And if ever you soldiers and true 
officers come again into the Power of God which hath been lost, 
never set up your standard until you come to Rome, and let it be 
atop of Rome, then there let your standard stand.” 

Yet the writer believes that the “ power of the Lord ” would 
have accomplished this without violence and bloodshed, for he says 
that those obedient to Christ love their enemies, and only one “ out 
of truth, . . . will kill and compel and persecute to death, to 
worship.” Again, in the passage immediately before the descrip¬ 
tion of the standard at Rome, he says :— 

“ Stand in that in which there is peace, the Seed Christ, which 
destroyeth the Devil the author of wars, strifes, and confusion,” 
and exhorts the soldiers to do violence to no man nor be like blind 
persecutors, “ for persecution was always blind,” 


122 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

It seems impossible either to prove or disprove the authorship 
of Fox. The handwriting of the MS. index to the volume of 
tracts is apparently that of Joseph Besse, which would carry the 
attribution to Fox back to the early eighteenth century. It is 
noted under Fox’s name in Joseph Smith’s Catalogue of Friends 9 
Books , 1867, but in this he was probably following the pencil 
endorsement on the tract itself. On the other hand, I have not 
found its title in two very careful and elaborate chronological indices 
to Fox’s works, made either during his lifetime or immediately after 
his death, and now in the Friends’ Reference Library. The style 
is not very characteristic of Fox, and in some points more resembles 
that of George Fox “the Younger,” particularly in the elaborate 
conclusion : 

From a Lover of peace and all souls, who stands in the election before 
the world began, 

F. G. 

One sentence almost implies that the writer was a soldier : 
“ Thousands of us went in the front of you , and were with you in 
the greatest heats.” The signature, “ F. G.,” however, is not 
known to have been used by George Fox the Younger, while, 
although rare, it does occur in some of Fox’s pamphlets and letters, 
for instance the declaration to Cromwell in 1654. The tract 
has no publisher’s name, and on the whole I am inclined to think 
it may be a resume of recent utterances and writings by several 
leading Friends, made for the benefit of the army by some ardent 
follower (possibly George Fox the Younger ?) without their know¬ 
ledge. This would explain its echoes and inconsistencies. The 
passages about Spain and the Pope resemble Burrough’s Epistle too 
closely to be mere coincidence. An undoubted tract by Fox, 
published immediately after the Restoration, gives no countenance 
to wars of religion. This is the “ book,” Fear God and Honour 
the King , of which Fox wrote in his Journal , 1666, that it “did 
much affect soldiers and most people.” From his allusion it might 
belong to that year, but in fact it was published in 1660, and was 
probably intended to establish the loyalty of Friends in the eyes 
of the authorities. 1 Its argument is that no one who does not live 

1 A word on behalf of the King, that he may see who they are that . . . 
Fear God and Honour the King 5 . . . and also to see that Christ ends the Jews’ 
law by which they were to kill about religion such as are contrary-minded, and 
he never gave out any since to do so, but to love enemies . . . and they that do 
so are the true Christians (1660, Tracts , 45, 28 in D.). 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 123 

in the fear of God can truly honour the King. Fox is emphatic, 
and even intemperate in his denunciations of the military and civil 
vices of the day, but the long catalogue of sins forms a dark back¬ 
ground against which shines out the peaceable message of the 
Gospel. “To love enemies, it is not to kill them and to destroy 
them, but to overcome them with the good. . . . Such as will 
fight and kill and destroy for a morsel of bread or a mess of pottage, 
are profane as Esau was. . . . Now the Jews who hated enemies 
their weapons are carnal, but they that love enemies (the Christians) 
their weapons were and are spiritual. So Christ ends that law of 
the Jews, which they thought they did God good service by, when 
they put to death them that were contrary minded to them ; for 
they could not love enemies that killed them, neither can they that 
love enemies now kill them. . . . And he broke down the par¬ 
tition wall which was between Jew and Gentile, who slew the enmity, 
and so of twain made one new man, and thereby came the love to 
enemies.” 

Another interesting figure in this group of early Friends was 
Isaac Penington. Son of a Puritan Lord Mayor of London and 
married to Lady Springett, widow of a Parliamentary officer, he 
was not likely to be looked upon favourably by the new Govern¬ 
ment. Husband and wife had been convinced of the truth of 
Friends’ principles in 1658. In 1659, like man y other Friends, 
he addressed “ The Parliament, the Army, and all the well-affected 
in the Nation who have been faithful to the good old cause.” 1 
The pamphlet bears clear traces of his Puritan upbringing. He 
urged the soldiers not to become discredited by their dissensions. 
“ The account of all the blood which hath been shed lies some¬ 
where. Was it for a thing of naught ? Was it of no value ? 
Nay, it was precious in the sight of the Lord, many (yea, very 
many) in the singleness and simplicity of their hearts losing their 
lives for the cause.” There had often been “a naked, honest, 
simple, pure thing stirring in the army,” but evil persons had made 
it a tool for their private ends so that it did not procure the “ righteous 
liberty and common good ” at which the majority aimed. Turning 
to the Parliament, he warned them : “ Let not the army be your 
confidence. Do not any one thing to please the army, much less 
a corrupt interest of a part of the army ; but apply yourselves to 
do that which is truly just and righteous in the sight of God, of 
1 Penington, Works , p. 135. 


124 THE GROUND OF THE EE ACE TESTIMONY 

the army, and of all men.” A few months later, when the monarchy 
was restored, Penington drew the moral. “It is man’s way to 
settle himself by outward strength against outward strength, and then 
he thinks he is safe, not eyeing the invisible hand which turns the 
wheels.” 1 Next year, 1661, while lying in Aylesbury gaol on 
behalf of his faith, he wrote an apology for the Quaker as citizen, 
which shows a real effort to enter into the mind and meet the 
objections of the average Englishman when confronted by this 
unfamiliar attitude towards war. The paper is lengthy, and it has 
a lengthy title. 2 

The Weighty Question (the apology is written in the form of 
a catechism) is, whether Quakers “ who (by the peaceableness and 
love which God hath wrought in their spirits, and by that law of 
life, mercy, good-will, and forgiveness, which God by his own 
finger hath written in their hearts) are taken off from fighting and 
cannot use a weapon destructive to any creature,” have any claim 
on the protection of the magistrates and the laws. Penington answers 
that the powers of the State are intended for the benefit of the whole 
nation, including women, children, the sick and aged, and priests, 
“who have ability to fight but are exempted by their function, 
which is not equivalent to the exemption which God makes by the 
law of his Spirit in the heart.” Fighting “came in by the Fall,” 
so is it not righteous and equitable that the fighting nature should 
come to an end in those redeemed from the Fall, and chosen to be 
examples of peace ? “ How can he fight with creatures in whom 

is love and good-will towards those creatures ? . . . Fighting is 
not suitable to a gospel spirit, but to the spirit of the world and the 
children thereof. The fighting in the gospel is turned inward 
against the lusts, and not outward against the creatures.” This 
blessed state of outward peace and inward spiritual victory will, 
according to prophecy, some day prevail throughout the world. 
But it must first arise in individuals, and these peaceable folk are 

* Works, p. 293. 

a Somewhat spoken to a Weighty Question, concerning the Magistrate’s 
protection of the Innocent, wherein is held forth the blessing and peace which 
Nations ought to wait for and embrace in the latter days. With some considera¬ 
tions for the serious and wise in heart throughout this Nation to ponder for diverting 
God’s wrath (if possible) from breaking forth on it. 

Also a brief account of what the people called Quakers desire, in reference to 
the Civil Government. With a few words to such as by the everlasting Arm of 
God’s Power have been drawn and gathered out of the Apostacy, into the living 
Truth and Worship. 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 125 

not a weakness to the State, but rather a strength. Penington 
presses this argument with great earnestness and animation. 

“ When righteousness is brought forth, and when the seed of 
God springs up and flourisheth, that nation grows strong ; and 
instead of the arms and strength of man the eternal strength over¬ 
spreads that nation, and that Wisdom springs up in the spirits of men, 
which is better than weapons of war ; and the wisdom which is 
from above is pure and peaceable, and teacheth to make peace and 
to remove the cause of contentions and wars, and unites the heart 
to the Lord in waiting upon him for counsel, strength, and preserva¬ 
tion in this state, who is brought into it. Now is not this much 
better and safer then the present estate of things in the world ? 
First, to have the cause of wars removed, and a sweet, peaceable, 
righteous spirit in the stead thereof ? Secondly, to have a peaceable 
and a righteous generation (whom the Lord hath made and pre¬ 
served so) breathing to the Lord for peace, good, and prosperity to 
the nation and the magistrates thereof, and to stretch forth his arm 
to be a defence about them ? Thirdly, to have the God of Heaven 
engaged by his power to defend that power and magistracy, which 
defends righteousness in general, and particularly his people in their 
obedience unto him, whom it is most righteous for them to obey, 
and for the magistrate (who claims his rule and dominion under 
God) to protect them in ? Were not this much better both for 
magistrates and people than the present state ? ” 

The imaginary questioner, passing over the ingenious plea for 
toleration, here objects that “this is a Utopian state, or a world 
in the moon.” Penington replies that it is the state foretold in 
divine prophecy. Will it not be happy when it comes to pass ? 
Who would hinder it ? Nay, more, in the early days of Christianity 
this state was in “a fair forwardness,” but many generations ago 
the true Church, the Bride of Christ, was driven out into the wilder¬ 
ness, and a “ cruel bloody stepmother ” was welcomed by the world 
in her place. And now, after the long night of apostasy, the spirit 
of Christ is awakening again and gathering men together to the 
true Church, making them pure and peaceable. “ As the Lord 
does this so will it go on, and the nations, kings, princes, great ones, 
as this principle is raised in them, and the contrary wisdom, the 
earthly policy (which undoes all) brought down, so will they feel 
the blessings of God in themselves, and become a blessing to others.” 
This is the only way of healing the grievously distracted nation, 


126 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 


but man is not ready to learn it until taught in the hard school of 
adversity. 

A new objection, however, is raised. “If all men were of 
this mind, and none would fight ; suppose a nation should be 
invaded, would not the land of necessity be ruined ? ” The objection 
is a familiar one to-day, and Penington’s answer is worth citing 
at some length : 

“ First, whensoever such a thing shall be brought forth in the 
world, it must have a beginning before it can grow and be perfected. 
And where should it begin but in some particulars [individuals] 
in a nation, and so spread by degrees, until it hath overspread the 
nation, and then from nation to nation until the whole earth be 
leavened ? Therefore, whoever desires to see this lovely state 
brought forth in the general, if he would further his own desire, 
must cherish it in the particular. And O that men would not 
spend their strength and hazard the loss of all in cherishing pretences 
and names of Christianity, but would pray to the Lord at length 
to open that eye in them which can see the loveliness of the truth, 
power, and virtue of Christianity, that they might cherish that 
tenderness of conscience wherein the truth grows and springs up 
in its virtue and power.” Thus the conversion to a peaceable state 
will not be sudden and catastrophic, but gradual. But, secondly, 
the objection is really based on distrust of God. “ It is not for 
a nation (coming into the gospel life and principle) to take care 
beforehand how they shall be preserved, but the gospel will teach 
a nation (if they hearken to it) as well as a particular person to trust 
the Lord, and to wait on him for preservation. Israel of old stood 
not by their strength and wisdom and preparations against their 
enemies, but in quietness and confidence and waiting on the Lord 
for direction (Isa. xxx. 15), and shall not such now, who are true 
Israelites, and have indeed attained to the true gospel state, follow 
the Lord into the peaceable life and spirit of the gospel, unless they 
see by rational demonstration beforehand, how they shall be pre¬ 
served therein ? I speak not this against any magistrates or peoples 
defending themselves against foreign invasions, or making use of 
the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within their borders 
(for this the present state of things doth require, and a great blessing 
will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end, and 
its use will be honourable ; and while there is need of a sword, the 
Lord will not suffer that Government or those governors to want 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 


12 7 

fitting instruments under them, for the managing thereof, who wait 
on him in his fear to have the edge of it rightly directed) : but 
yet there is a better state which the Lord hath already brought some 
into, and which nations are to expect and travel towards. Yea, 
it is far better to know the Lord to be the defender, and to wait 
on him daily, and see the need of his strength, wisdom, and preser¬ 
vation, than to be never so strong and skilful in weapons of war.” 

Lastly, Old Testament history gives abundant proof that the 
power of God, and not material force, alone avails to protect and 
defend those that trust in Him. Is the arm of the Lord shortened ? 
“ Will he not preserve and defend that nation, whom he first 
teacheth to leave off war, that they shall not be made a prey of, 
while he is teaching other nations the same lesson ? ” As he pre¬ 
served Israel of old in their obedience to him, so can he do now. 
“ Consider this ” (Penington utters his vehement appeal), “ O ye great 
men, O ye wise men, and deep politicians ; all ye have done or can 
ever do in relation to overturning that God hath purposed, what 
are ye therein, or what has your work come to ? It is just like the 
small dust of the balance, it hinders not at all the weight of his 
power on the other hand, but he will carry on his work, bring to 
pass what he hath purposed in himself and promised to his people.” 
The nation “ at the bottom ” longs for righteousness, and a Govern¬ 
ment of worldly wisdom and policy can never bring this forth, nor 
the peace that accompanies righteousness. 

The arguments in the second portion of the pamphlet (“ Some 
considerations for the serious and wise in heart throughout the 
nation ”) are chiefly drawn from the desperate state of contemporary 
politics (to which Penington finds parallels in the Apocalypse) and 
include a reiterated assertion of divine omnipotence. “ Those 
that fight against the Lamb must needs be overcome by Him, His 
invisible strength and armies being much stronger than the visible 
armies and all the outward strength of nations, though to the outward 
eye such may appear very great and invincible.” 

The last section, “ A brief account of what the people called 
Quakers desire in reference to the Civil Government,” contains a 
programme which might have saved Charles and his successor from 
some of their misfortunes. 

“ There are three things which we cannot but earnestly desire 
in our hearts, and pray to the Lord for, as the proper means of 
settling aright the spirit of this nation, as also necessary for the 


128 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 


growth of God’s pure living truth and as just and equal in them¬ 
selves. 

“ i. Universal liberty for all sorts to worship God, according 
as Christ shall open men’s eyes to see the truth. . . . 

“ 2. That no laws formerly made contrary to the principle of 
equity and righteousmess in man, may remain in force ; nor no 
new ones be made but such as are manifestly agreeable thereunto. . . 

“ 3. . . . That no party might be bolstered up in enmity and 
opposition against another, but that every party might be considered, 
in what might be done for their ease and benefit, without detriment 
to any other party. And if I might be hearkened to, I would 
persuade those now in power, not to deal with their enemies as 
they formerly dealt with them, but as they would have been dealt 
with by them when they were in power.” 

He earnestly dissuades all people from plots, and begs instead 
their prayers for the new Government. But if its members act 
corruptly and selfishly, plots will be superfluous, “ for the Lord 
God Almighty who with ease removed their enemies and made 
way for them can with as great ease remove them and put the power 
into another hand.” 

Much of the treatise, Penington adds, was written long since, 
but it is published at this juncture to show the loyalty of his Society 
and issued from his own place of bondage, where he prays “ for 
the turning of the captivity of the whole creation.” 

Penington’s incidental remark that he does not condemn magis¬ 
trates or a people who defend themselves against foreign invasion 
hardly seems, when read in its context, to bear the weight of meaning 
put upon it by some critics of the Quaker position, even were it 
(what it is not) an official pronouncement by the Society. Penington, 
who is addressing the outside public, agrees that defence by force 
of arms is permissible to those who believe that by such methods 
they are fulfilling God’s will, “ but yet there is a better state, which 
the Lord hath already brought some into, and which nations are to 
expect and travel towards.” 

The next peace treatise leads us from politics to mysticism. 
William Smith, of Beesthorp, Notts, suffered much imprisonment 
for his faith. 1 His voluminous works were collected under the title 
Balm in Gilead in 1675, and include two pronouncements on peace. 
The first, published in 1659, was “A right Dividing and a true 
1 He had been an Independent minister and was convinced in 1658. 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 


129 

Discerning, showing the use of the sword, and how and where it 
is in its place, and what it is to be laid upon.” This tract develops 
the favourite theme that the sword’s only lawful use is in the 
repression of crime. “To suppress violence, to punish the evil¬ 
doers, and to rule those that are unruly, disobedient, and disorderly, 
this is manly, and answers the end for which the sword is put in 
their hands.” But some have advanced further. To them “ the 
use of the sword is not known, they are out of the place of a soldier, 
neither do know a soldier’s place, which is under the state of a man, 
violently to kill and destroy each other and know not wherefore. . . . 
They return not to it again, they see a further thing the end of 
that.” Soldiers, however, who become convinced of Friends’ 
views are not to be hasty, but to consider “ whether God hath set 
thee there.” God may call some warrior like Cyrus to do his work, 
but that is no concern of those, the “ Children of Light,” who 
have heard the divine call to turn away from the world. “ The 
true minister’s work is to bring people to God and to Christ, and 
not to keep people in the world, where the tribulation, wars, and 
fightings is. ... For where the Spirit of the Lord puts itself 
forth in any measure there will not be a killing, devouring, or taking 
away the lives of men, for he came not to destroy men’s lives but 
to save them.” And the pamphlet ends with a condemnation of 
the corrupt magistrate, who misuses the civil sword and “ lets the 
poor be punished and the rich escape, because he can give money 
to free himself from punishment . . . and if he has not money 
he must be whipt or stockt or go to prison.” 

Two years later he was himself a prisoner “ in Worcester County 
Gaol ... for obedience to the command of Jesus Christ.” There 
he wrote another peace tract, 1 inflamed with a glow of mystical 
fervour. Like many Quaker writers, Smith is too diffuse, but 
for beauty of thought and expression this little-known tract must 
take high rank in the literature of religious experience. It opens 
with a fervent description of the love and mercy of God and of the 
yearning of men’s hearts towards him until “ the light leads out of 
the earth and all earthly things and leads up to God, the fountain 

1 The Banner of Love under which the Royal Army is preserved and safely 
conducted. Being a clear and perfect way out of all wars and contentions ; with 
a short testimony unto the way of peace. Given forth for the edification and 
comfort of all that truly fear God. Written by the hand of one who bears good-will 
to all men. 


9 


130 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

of eternal love, in whose pure presence the fulness of joy is 
found.” 

And as men learn more of the love of God they enlist under 
him in the war of righteousness. 

“ And of the immortal seed is the Royal Army born, and they 
are conquerors through him that loves them and spreads his banner 
over them, and their weapons are love and patience, by which they 
overcome ; and they do not think ill to their neighbours, but love 
their enemies, and are ready to do good to those that are contrary 
minded ; and they would have all come to the love of God, that 
they might be saved. . . . And this is an Army that the Lord 
hath gathered and is gathering from amongst the earthly warriors, 
whose strength is in the horse and his rider, and the Lord God 
puts into their hands the spiritual weapon, and with it they go forth 
to battle, and they seek to save men’s lives and not to destroy them.” 
It is an army of peace. “ The aliens’ army draw their swords and 
kill one another ; the Royal Army have put up their swords and 
would have all men saved. And who need to fear such an army, 
whose' banner is love, and their weapons good-will ? There need 
no horsemen and strong armies to oppose them, not prisons to quiet 
them, for they are marching under the Banner of Love, and in love 
meet their enemies and quench their fury ; and whatever can be 
done against them love is their Banner, and with it they are wonder¬ 
fully preserved.” In time the army will grow to an overwhelming 
strengh and “ war will cease, and cruelty come to an end, and love 
will abound.” Those who fight the Lord’s battle dare not destroy 
the life of any, for outward weapons cannot establish a spiritual 
kingdom. The argument closes with a direct address to Fifth 
Monarchists and others who rely on force. 

“ Now all that are striving and warring and have it in their 
hearts so to do, and thereby think to set up their religion and their 
observations ; or such as expect a time in which Christ will appear 
personally upon the earth to reign, and have in their hearts to 
cut off and destroy the contrary minded, and so by weapons of war 
fight for his kingdom into his dominion, unto such sorts of people 
it is said, Be still and quiet, lest ye put forth your hand to do evil, 
and so provoke the Holy One to anger ; and in your froward minds 
provoke one another, and so kindle wrath and anger one in another. 
From which comes all wars and contentions which is not the way 


EARLY APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 


131 

in which Christ appears, nor the path in which he leads his Royal 
Army.” If men follow the “ pure principle of light in their own 
conscience ” it will lead them into unity with the spirit of Christ. 
In conclusion, Smith breaks out into a “ Short Testimony to the 
Way of Peace,” a rhythmic utterance of the deepest spiritual 
experience, only paralleled in Quaker writings by Thomas Story’s 
later rhapsodies. 

“ The life of Christ is sweet, it is the substance of whatever 
can be spoken of: to inherit a measure of it is joy and peace, and 
the desire of the simple is abundantly satisfied therein. ... It 
hath its course in the valley, and flows in the channel of lowliness ; 
the humble meet it in the way, and in the pure streams they receive 
their portion ; to be low and humble is the way of life, and therein 
do the lambs enjoy their pasture. As it is tasted it draws still after 
it, and the more it is tasted the more it is beloved ; and as it is 
beloved the more it springs, and flows to that which thirsteth, and 
in patience waiting the virtue of it is felt, and the mind sinks down 
more into it, and the delight is in the sweet savour of it. This is 
the way of the humble and this is the path of the lowly mind. . . . 
There is no limitation of its breaking forth, but when and where 
and in whom it pleaseth ; it prepares the vessel for its use and makes 
it honourable in its own holiness. It springs and fills according 
to its pleasure and the vessel must be new that doth contain it.” 
The love of God is “ a fresh stream that cannot cease its course, 
nor stop its flowing, but must shed itself abroad,” and constrains 
those touched by it “ to behave themselves in love and tenderness 
to all people ; and in the one Spirit hath the Lord gathered them ; 
and in the one Spirit he hath bound them up, and they are his 
people, and he is their God, and dwells amongst them, and walks 
in them ; and the Prince of Peace orders them, and they are his 
Royal Army in whose Love and Life they stand in unity, and give 
up their bodies and spirits unto God, that his own Will may be done, 
and the intents of his own Heart performed and his own Name 
therein glorified.” 

So the gentle prisoner of Worcester Gaol ends. Little more 
is known of his life, but his thoughts must have sunk deep into 
Quaker minds, for the sufferings on peace grounds multiply fast 
after the Restoration. 

The last pamphlet of this early period which deserves notice 


132 THE GROUND OF THE REACE TESTIMONY 

here is a plain statement 1 of the Quaker position and a defence 
of it against popular misconceptions, put forth by William Bayly 
in 1662. Bayly was a sea-captain, convinced in 1655, anc ^ often 
imprisoned. He died in 1675. 

The argument follows familiar lines. Friends’ principle of 
peace, he says, is everlasting and universal, founded on God himself, 
and “ before death, hell, strife, and wars.” Being joined to Christ, 
they partake in some measure of the Spirit of Christ which 
“ destroys the ground of enmity in man.” a “ We bear good-will 
to all people upon earth, Jew and Gentile, bond and free, barbarians, 
Turks, Indians, Greeks, Romans, English, or any other. God 
hath made us all of one blood to dwell upon the face of the earth. 
We are all of one blood, all the workmanship of one creator.” 

This principle is not “an opinion or judgment which may fail 
us, or in which we may be mistaken or doubt, but it is the infallible 
ground and unchangeable foundation of our religion (that is to say) 
Christ Jesus the Lord, that Spirit, Divine nature or Way of Life, 
which God hath raised and renewed in us, in which we walk, and in 
whom we delight to dwell, and cannot but worship and yield obedience 
to.” Such a definition of Christ, laying stress rather on divine 
Immanence than on divine Personality, was soon to expose the 
Quakers to charges of heresy. 

Some, remembering the extravagances of Anabaptists and 
Millenarians, feared lest this “spirit” should at times move the 
Quakers to fight. “To which we answer in the fear of God in 
the truth and simplicity of our hearts as it is in Jesus, that we do 
really and confidently believe that the Lord our God (who is that 
good spirit that guides us into all truth) will never move us to do 
that or those things again for which he hath rebuked us. . . . So 
that to us it seemeth as impossible for us to be found in such things 
(plottings, fightings, and violence) as for a good tree to bring forth 
evil fruit, or for one fountain to yield salt water and fresh, for we 

1 A Brief Declaration to all the world from the innocent people of God called 
Quakers, of our principles and belief concerning plottings and fightings, with 
carnal weapons, against any people, men, or nations upon the earth, to take away 
the reproach, or any jealousies out of the minds of all people concerning us in 
this particular and to answer that common objection whether we would not fight 
if the Spirit moved us (D. Tracts , 99, 36). 

1 So John Whitehead, an old soldier, writes of his fellow Quakers : “ Being 
leavened through with love and mercy, it is against their very nature to revenge 
themselves, or use carnal weapons to kill, hurt, or destroy mankind ” (A Small 
Treatise , 1661). v 


EARLT APOLOGISTS FOR PEACE 133 

have felt God’s rebukes because of the strong nature that dwelt 
in us, from whence envy, pride, wrath, malice, and heart-burnings 
one against another spring.” 

Lest this attitude of peace should lead their enemies to say, 
“We use them as we list without fear,” Bayly warns them that 
God will exact an account from all persecutors. And finally he, 
as far as in him lies, clears the Society from any scandal brought 
upon it by pseudo-Quakers. 

“ And now if any that hath been at our meetings, or have come 
at any time (as many do) to see our manner, or that may be by 
some called a Quaker, should be (which we have never yet known 
among us) found in any plotting against any men or people what¬ 
soever, to contrive mischief, danger, or hurt either to body, soul, 
or estate any way under any pretence whatsoever, we do utterly 
(in the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour) deny that part 
or spirit in all men upon the earth, as that which our principle (the 
everlasting foundation of God) and our spirit have no fellowship or 
unity with.” 


CHAPTER V 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 

The foregoing vindications and explanations of the Quaker principle 
had all been short occasional writings, called forth by some emergency. 
The reign of Charles II witnessed the establishment, and in some 
sense the recognition, of the new sect. Its message had spread, 
its organization had developed, and the time was ripe for a fuller 
and more literary statement of its belief and practice. Quakerism 
found its apologist in Robert Barclay, one of the comparatively 
few men of birth and scholarship who joined the Society in its early 
days. Born in 1648, at Gordonstown in Moray, he was the son 
of Colonel David Barclay, a Protestant soldier of fortune in the 
Thirty Years and Civil Wars, and of Catherine Gordon, a distant 
cousin of the house of Stuart. 1 Young Robert, however, was 
educated under a Jesuit uncle, head of the Scots Theological College 
in Paris, and the boy (as he wrote in later years), exposed to Calvinist 
teaching at home and to Catholic in his school days, kept himself 
“ free from joining with any sort of people,” noticing in all their 
defect in “ the principle of love.” 

His father had been a lukewarm supporter of the Cromwellian 
rule, but at the Restoration he fell under suspicion, and in 1665 
he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. “ While in London he 
had often heard of the Quakers, and had been attracted by the prin¬ 
ciples they taught as well as by their manner of life. He noticed 
that they refused to fight even those who might be called their 
enemies, and that they loved one another. These two facts struck 
him as very remarkable, and he decided that these must be the true 
followers of Christ upon earth, if there were any such.” 2 A Quaker, 
John Swinton, was his fellow prisoner, and he soon converted David 

1 See Robert Barclay , by M. C. Cadbury, 1912. 

a Ibid., p. 26. 


134 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 


*35 

Barclay to the faith, which he upheld with constancy and courage 
under suffering (as Whittier’s ballad 1 reminds us) for the rest of his 
long life. 

Robert Barclay at first was allowed to visit the prison, and when 
the permission was withdrawn he had learnt enough from Swinton 
to induce him to attend the Friends’ Meetings in Edinburgh, 
which, though proscribed, were regularly held. The result he has 
described in a beautiful and familiar passage. In the section of 
his Apology discussing the Quaker mode of worship, he explains, 
with a rare autobiographical touch, that he is speaking out of his 
own experience : “ Who, not by strength of argument, or by a 
particular disquisition of each doctrine and convincement of my 
understanding thereby came to receive and bear witness of the 
truth, but by being secretly reached by this life. For when I came 
into the silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power 
among them, which touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, 
I found the evil weakening in me, and the good raised up, and so 
I became thus knit and united unto them, hungering more and 
more after the increase of this power and life, whereby I might 
feel myself perfectly redeemed.” “ It must be ” (he added) “ rather 
by a sensible experience than by arguments, that men can be con¬ 
vinced of this thing, seeing it is not enough to believe it, if they 
come not also to enjoy and possess it.” 2 

Thus, in 1666, as a youth of eighteen, he joined the Society 
of Friends. The rest of his life was consecrated to preaching, 
defending and suffering for what, in his belief, was Divine Truth. 
At first he lived as a peaceful student on his father’s estate at Ury, 
doing what he could to maintain the property, for David Barclay 

i “ Barclay of Ury.” Alexander Barclay, an ancient Scottish poet, was 
claimed by the house as an ancestor. He left behind him some moral maxims, 
which suit well with the lives of his Quaker descendants. 

“ See that thou pass not thy estate j 
Obey duly thy magistrate ; 

Oppress not, but support the puir. 

To help the commonweal take cuire ; 

Use no deceit ; mell not with treason, 

And to all men do right and reason. 

Both unto word and deed be true $ 

All kind of wickedness eschew. 

Slay no man ; nor thereto consent; 

Be nought cruel, but patient.” 

a Barclay, Apology , Proposition xi. sec. 7 (Concerning Worship). The whole 
section is of extraordinary force and beauty. 


136 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

was not released from prison for some years. Robert Barclay’s 
first tract in defence of Quakerism was published in 1670, the year 
of his most happy marriage. Of the twenty years of life before 
him, the next ten were the most eventful. In them he was thrice 
imprisoned for his faith, he published his chief works, and he made 
two missionary journeys to Holland and Germany. The fruit of 
this foreign travel was a close friendship with the learned and 
mystical Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine, the patroness of Descartes 
and cousin of Charles II. Barclay, through his mother, was a 
distant kinsman, but the sympathy between himself and Elizabeth 
was based on a community of thought, and until her death in 1679 
they kept up a frequent correspondence on spiritual themes. The 
Princess must have had little in common with that dashing cavalier 
her brother Rupert, but they were on affectionate terms, and more 
than once she wrote urging him to influence the King to deal more 
leniently with Quakers, especially with Barclay and his friends. 
Barclay also obtained some help from the Duke of York, and their 
acquaintance was maintained during James’ Commissionership at 
Holyrood, in spite of the cruel persecution of the Covenanters, 
which Barclay reprobated. In James’ reign he was often at Court 
on behalf of his fellow Quakers. It was to him that the King just 
before his flight made the well-known remark that, according to 
the Whitehall weathercock, the wind was fair for William of 
Orange. After the Revolution he naturally fell under suspicion 
for Jacobitism, and was accused of being a disguised Jesuit. He 
wrote in reply a spirited “ Vindication,” 1 in which, while dis¬ 
claiming all sympathy with the doctrines and practice of the Roman 
Church, he admitted that he had personal friends among members 
of that communion, and boldly declared that he had less inclination 
to attack Catholicism in its present adversity than in its days of 
power. Persecution, “ the worst part of Popery,” comes with an 
ill grace from its opponents ; “ to say we are right and they are 
wrong, and therefore we have a right to force their consciences, 
but not they ours, is miserably to beg the question.” 

Barclay, and his father before him, had undoubtedly feelings of 
loyalty to the House of Stuart, and to the charge of holding aloof 


1 Reliquia Barcleianiae , 1870. Vindication of Robert Barclay of Ury, being 
an explanation by the Apologist of circumstances connected with his intercourse 
with King James II, written in 1689. From an MS. formerly at Ury, 
(lithographed). In D. 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 137 

from the change of government he replied : “ I never did believe 
nor ever shall, that it is my duty to be active in such a change. . . . 
I shall always hold me by the doctrine of non-resistance and passive 
obedience.” Of his feelings towards the fugitive King he wrote 
without disguise. “To do him right, I never found reason to 
doubt his sincerity in the matter of liberty of conscience. ... I 
must own, nor will I decline to avow that I love King James, that 
I wish him well, that I have been and am sensibly touched with 
a feeling of his misfortunes, and that I cannot excuse myself from 
the duty of praying for him that God may bless him and sanctify 
this affliction to him. And if so be his will to take from him an 
earthly crown, he may prepare his heart and direct his steps so that 
he may obtain through mercy an heavenly one, which all good 
Christians judge the most preferable.” 

Holding these sentiments, he was naturally not regarded with 
favour under the new reign, and he spent the short remainder of his 
life quietly on his estate of Ury. He was not yet forty-two when 
he was struck down by a fatal illness. Among his last words were : 
“ God is good still ; and though I am under a great weight of 
sickness and weakness as to my body, yet my peace flows.” He died 
on October 3, 1690. 

Three of Barclay’s works bear directly on the subject of peace. 
The Apology for the True Christian Divinity , published in 1676, 
deals at length with the whole body of Quaker doctrine and practice, 
including the testimony against all wars. In the winter of 1676—7 
he was imprisoned, with other Quakers, in the Tolbooth of Aberdeen 
for some months. During this time he wrote the treatise on 
Universal Love, a protest to all Christians against any form of 
persecution or war. The following year, 1678, he dispatched 
an Epistle to the representatives of the Powers assembled for peace 
negotiations at Nimeguen, expounding to them the “ means for a 
firm and settled peace.” Thus, in three years, a distinct advance 
had been made. Earlier writers had contented themselves with 
defending Quaker peaceableness against misunderstanding and 
misrepresentation in times of special crisis. Barclay first showed 
it in its true relation to their whole body of belief, then urged it 
on his fellow Christians as an essential part of Christianity, and 
finally he made a definite effort towards the restoration of peace 
to the war-ravaged countries of Europe. Had he lived longer he 
might have been able to share with Penn in a new development, 


138 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

the government of a State according to the principles of Friends. 
In his later years he did actually join in the colonization of East 
Jersey, founded, mainly by Friends, on the principle of toleration, 
and was appointed its nominal governor, paying a deputy. From 
David Barclay his son had learned much of the horrors perpetrated 
by all the contending parties in the Thirty Years War, and of the 
sufferings endured even in the milder campaigns of our own Civil 
War, while the Low Countries and Westphalia, during Robert 
Barclay’s visits, bore plain traces of the devastations caused by the 
war between Louis XIV and the Dutch. In all his writings on 
the subject his position is the same. His firm conviction that war 
and Christianity are irreconcilable and that force is ineffectual to 
change opinion or belief, gives him an especial horror of the religious 
motive so loudly trumpeted in the wars of his day and of the action 
of religious leaders in fomenting war. He has a burning pity for 
the mass of innocent suffering created by any war, and for the great 
armies automatically driven to mutual slaughter at the will of a few 
statesmen. To him the only remedy lies in the awakening of the 
individual conscience and the revival of true Christianity. The 
Society of Friends had made this attempt, but the world had received 
its teaching with persecution and contumely. Thus he links together 
an apology for Quakerism and a plea for the abolition of war. Into 
the Apology Barclay put all the learning and power of exposition 
which he possessed. The foundations of his theological knowledge 
had been well laid at the Scots College, and the edifice was built 
up by years of patient study. William Penn in his writings shows 
a wider and more liberal culture, but in divinity Barclay had few 
rivals at his age, and he employs his knowledge of patristic and 
mediaeval writers with great aptness and facility. The learned 
John Norris, one of the Cambridge Platonists and a weighty opponent 
of Quakerism, pays Barclay sincere and ungrudging compliments. 
“Mr. Barclay is a very great man, and were it not for that common 
prejudice that lies against him as being a Quaker, would be as sure 
not to fail of that character in the world as any of the finest wits 
this age has produced.” Again, “That great and general con¬ 
tempt they lie under, does not hinder me from thinking the sect 
of the Quakers to be by far the most considerable of any that divide 
from us, in case the Quakerism that is generally held be the same 
with that which Mr. Barclay has delivered to the world as such ; 
whom I take to be so great a man, that I profess to you freely, I 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 139 

had rather engage against an hundred Bellarmins, Hardings, or 
Stapyltons, than with one Barclay.” 1 

Later the Apology received the hearty praise of Voltaire, both 
for its argument and its latinity. For it was first published in the 
universal tongue of scholars, though it soon was translated into the 
chief European languages. In the business records of the Society 
for the next hundred years there appear many arrangements for the 
publication and distribution of foreign editions of the Apology , as 
the best handbook to Quaker faith and practice. The original 
Latin edition appeared at Amsterdam in 1676, during Barclay’s 
travels in Holland. Two years later the first English edition was 
published. The book is an expansion of or commentary upon 
fifteen Theses Theologies published by Barclay a year or two earlier, 
also in Latin, and these, in their turn, are to some extent based on 
the order of the propositions in the Westminster Confession. Hence 
it comes about that War is treated of, oddly enough, under Propo¬ 
sition XV, “ Of Salutations and Recreations.” An address to the 
King, prefixed to the Apology , is couched in terms very unlike those 
in which authors usually presented their treatises to the favour of 
Charles II. 

“ It is far from me to use this Epistle as an engine to flatter 
thee, the usual design of such works, and therefore I can neither 
dedicate it to thee nor crave thy patronage, as if thereby I might 
have more confidence to present it to the world, or be more hopeful 
of its success. . . . But I found it upon my spirit to take occasion 
to present this book unto thee ; that . . . thou mayest not want 
a seasonable advertisement from a member of thine ancient kingdom 
of Scotland.” If Charles can allow himself “ so much time as to 
read this,” he will discover the consonance of Friends’ principles 
with “ scripture, truth, and right reason.” Addressing himself to 
the King as to one who had known intolerance and hardship, Barclay 
pleads against the persecution of the Restoration. His criticism of 
the Civil War is interesting : “ As the vindication of liberty of 
conscience (which thy father . . . sought in some part to restrain) 
was a great occasion of the troubles and revolutions ; so the pretence 
of conscience was that which carried it on, and brought it to that 
pitch it came to. And though (no doubt) some that were engaged 
in that work, designed good things, at least in the beginning (albeit 

1 Tvoo Treatises Concerning the Divine Light, by John Norris, M.A., 1692. 
Treatise Two. (The Grossness of the Quakers' Principle of the Light Within , pp. 1,32.) 


HO THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

always wrong in the manner they took to accomplish it, viz. by 
carnal weapons) yet so soon as they had tasted of the sweet of the 
possessions of them they had turned out, they quickly began to do 
those things themselves, for which they had accused others.” Charles 
himself was restored to his throne “ without stroke of sword,” by 
a manifest working of divine providence. 

“ There is no king in the world who can so experimentally 
testify of God’s providence and goodness ; neither is there any 
who rules so many free people, so many true Christians : which 
thing renders thy government more honourable, thyself more con¬ 
siderable, than the accession of many nations filled with slavish 
and superstitious souls. Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity ; 
thou knowest what it is to be banished from thy native country, to 
be over-ruled as well as to rule, and sit upon the throne ; and being 
oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppression 
is both to God and man, if after all these warnings and advertise¬ 
ments thou doest not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but 
forget him, who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself 
to follow lust and vanity—surely great will be thy condemnation.” 

In Proposition XV Barclay asserts as a definite tenet of the 
Society and in so many words that “it is not lawful for Christians 
to resist evil, or to war or fight in any case.” “ Revenge and war,” 
he writes, “are an evil as contrary to the spirit and doctrine of 
Christ as light to darkness. . . . The world is filled with violence, 
oppression, murders, ravishing of women and virgins, spoilings, 
depredations, burnings, devastations, and all manner of lasciviousness 
and cruelty.” He refers to the early fathers and to mediaeval com¬ 
mentators in proof that both oaths and war, though permitted to 
the Jews, were forbidden to the early Christians, and that the Church 
observed these prohibitions for the first three hundred years of her 
existence. “ For it is as easy to reconcile the greatest contradic¬ 
tions, as these laws of our Lord Jesus Christ with the wicked, 
practices of wars. Whoever can reconcile this, ‘Resist not evil,’ 
with ‘ Resist violence by force ’ ; again ‘ Give also thy other cheek,’ 
with ‘ Strike again ’ j also ‘ Love thine enemies,’ with ‘ Spoil them, 
make a prey of them, pursue them with fire and sword ’ ; or ‘ Pray 
for them that persecute you, and those that calumniate you,’ with 
‘Persecute them by fines, imprisonments, and death itself’ ; and 
not only such as do not persecute you, but who heartily seek and 
desire your eternal and temporal welfare : Whoever, I say, can 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 141 

find a means to reconcile these things, may be supposed also to have 
found a way to reconcile God with the Devil, Christ with anti- 
Christ, light with darkness, and good with evil. But if this be 
impossible as indeed it is, so will also the others be impossible ; and 
men do but deceive themselves and others, while they boldly adven¬ 
ture to establish such absurd and impossible things.” Barclay then 
goes on to take some of the familiar sayings of Christ and the 
Apostles, and to contrast them with the practices of war. For 
example : “ Christ commands that we should 4 love our enemies ’ ; 
but war, on the contrary, teacheth us to hate and destroy them. . . 
Christ calls his children to ‘ bear his cross,’ not to crucify or kill 
others ; to 4 patience ’ not to 6 revenge ’ : to truth and simplicity 
not to fraudulent stratagems of war, or to play the sycophant, which 
John himself forbids ; to flee the glory of this world, not to acquire 
it by warlike endeavour : therefore war is altogether contrary unto 
the law and spirit of Christ.” 

Barclay then meets the objections of his opponents who wish 
to reconcile Christianity and war. First they bring forward the 
familiar appeal to Old Testament precedents. His reply, in brief, 
is that the Old Testament dispensation has passed away in all its 
details, and Christ’s followers have learnt a purer and more spiritual 
religion. Secondly, “ they object that defence is of natural right, 
and that religion destroys not nature. I answer, Be it so ; but 
to obey God, and commend ourselves to him in faith and patience 
is not to destroy nature, but to exalt and perfect it.” 

A more trivial objection is based on John the Baptist’s admonition 
to the soldiers, and Barclay treats it almost contemptuously. 

“ I answer, what then ? The question is not concerning John’s 
doctrine, but Christ’s, whose disciples we are, not John’s. . . 

If it be narrowly minded, it will appear that what he proposeth 
to soldiers doth manifestly forbid them that employment. For 
he commands them ‘ not to do violence to any man, nor to defraud 
any man, but that they be content with their wages.’ Consider 
then what he dischargeth to soldiers, viz. not to use violence or 
deceit against any ; which being removed, let any tell how soldiers 
can war. For is not craft, violence, and injustice, three properties 
of war, and the natural consequence of battles ? ” To the instances 
of the devout centurions of the Gospels and the Acts, Barclay opposes 
the admitted practice of the Early Church. “ It is as easy to 
obscure the sun at mid-day as to deny that the primitive Christians 


142 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

renounced all revenge and war.” “Yet it is as well known” 
(he continues) “ that all the modern sects live in the neglect and 
contempt of this law of Christ, and likewise oppress others, who 
in this agree not with them for conscience’ sake towards God. 
Even as we have suffered much in our country, because we neither 
could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give 
our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military 
attire. 1 And lastly, because we could not hold our doors, windows, 
and shops close, for conscience’ sake, upon such days as fasts and 
prayers were appointed, for to desire a blessing upon, and success 
for the arms of the kingdom or commonwealth under which we 
live, neither give thanks for the victories acquired by the effusion 
of much blood.” 

The idea of Christians in the different warring nations imploring 
their God for “ contrary and contradictory things ” always struck 
Barclay with peculiar horror, and here he turns aside to reproach 
another sect opposed to war (probably the Baptists) for its conformity 
on these days of prayer and thanksgiving. 

The passage concerning two swords (Luke xxii. 36) is frequently 
cited as a proof of the lawfulness of arms. Barclay frankly admits 
that its meaning is difficult and has been variously interpreted. 
“ However ” (he adds sturdily) “ it is sufficient that the use of arms 
is unlawful under the Gospel.” The next objection raises the 
whole question of the rights of the State over the individual. “ They 
object, that the Scriptures and old fathers (so called) did only prohibit 
private revenge, not the use of arms for the defence of our country, 
body, wives, children, and goods, when the magistrate commands 
it, seeing the magistrate ought to be obeyed. Therefore albeit it 
be not lawful for private men to do it of themselves, nevertheless 
they are bound to do it by the command of the magistrate.” 

Barclay replies that this contention presupposes that the magis¬ 
trate is himself not truly Christian, and he quotes a strong passage 
from Vives 2 3 on the corruption induced by Constantine’s union of 
Christian profession with military power : “ He came into the house 
of Christ accompanied by the devil.” In such a case the Quaker, 
and those who think with him, must obey God rather than man. 

1 This is the “ Trophy Money ” ; distraints and imprisonments for its non¬ 

payment are often recorded among early “ sufferings.” 

3 A Spanish theologian and opponent of Scholasticism, a friend and corre¬ 
spondent of Erasmus. 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 143 

“ As to what relates to the present magistrates of the Christian 
world, albeit we deny them not altogether the name of Christians, 
because of the public profession they make of Christ’s name ; yet 
we may boldly affirm that they are far from the perfection of the 
Christian religion.” In this imperfect state, resembling that of 
the Jews, “ we shall not say that war undertaken upon a just occasion 
is altogether unlawful to them, but for such whom Christ hath 
brought hither, it is not lawful to defend themselves by arms, but 
they ought, over all, to trust to the Lord.” 

The imperfect Christians who are “ yet in the mixture ” cannot, 
he quaintly says, “ be undefending themselves.” This very qualified 
permission of defensive war for the professing Christian may be 
contrasted with Penington’s somewhat more emphatic toleration 
fifteen years earlier. For the Quaker, Barclay’s condemnation of 
war is unhesitating. 

“ If to revenge ourselves, or to render injury, evil for evil or 
wound for wound, to take eye for eye, tooth for tooth ; if to fight 
for outward and perishing things, to go a-warring one against another 
whom we never saw, nor with whom we never had any contest 
nor anything to do ; being moreover altogether ignorant of the 
cause of the war, but only that the magistrates of the nations foment 
quarrels one against another, the causes whereof are for the most 
part unknown to the soldiers that fight, as well as upon whose side 
the right or wrong is ; and yet to be so furious and rage one against 
another, to destroy and spoil all that this or the other worship may 
be received or abolished—if to do this and much more of this 
kind be to fulfil the law of Christ, then are our adversaries indeed 
true Christians, and we miserable heretics, that suffer ourselves to 
be spoiled, taken, imprisoned, banished, beaten, and evilly entreated 
without any resistance, placing our trust only in God, that he may 
defend us and lead us by the way of the Cross unto his kingdom. 
But if it be other ways we shall receive the reward which the Lord 
hath promised to those that cleave to him, and in denying themselves 
confide in him.” 

The abhorrence of all attempts to propagate opinion by force, 
whether through war or persecution, was deep-rooted in Barclay’s 
nature. In the Apology he meets the objection of those who argued 
that the doctrine of the divine light would lead men into anarchic 
frenzies like the excesses of the Munster Anabaptists by the bold 
reminder that “ as bad, if not worse, things have been committed 


i 4 4 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

by those that lean to tradition, Scripture, and reason. ... I need 
but mention all the tumults, seditions, and horrible bloodshed where¬ 
with Europe hath been afflicted these divers ages ; in which Papists 
against Papists, Calvinists against Calvinists, Lutherans against 
Lutherans, and Papists assisted by Protestants against other Pro¬ 
testants assisted by Papists, have miserably shed one another’s blood, 
hiring and forcing men to kill one another, who were ignorant of 
the quarrel and strangers to one another. All, meanwhile, pre¬ 
tending reason for so doing, and pleading the lawfulness of it from 
scripture.” Barclay concludes the argument by a spirited sketch 
of the rival sects with their several reasons for killing their wicked 
and profane opponents. 

His own view of the rights of the individual conscience is given 
in the Fourteenth Proposition of Theses Theologicoe , “ concerning 
the power of the civil magistrate in matters purely religious and 
pertaining to the conscience.” 

“ Since God hath assumed to himself the power and dominion 
of the conscience, who alone can rightly instruct and govern it; 
therefore it is not lawful for any whatsoever, by virtue of any 
authority or principality they bear in the government of this world 
to force the consciences of others ; and therefore all killing, banish¬ 
ing, fining, imprisoning, and other such things which men are 
afflicted with for the alone exercise of their conscience, or difference 
in worship or opinion, proceedeth from the spirit of Cain, the 
murderer, and is contrary to the truth ; provided always, that no 
man, under the pretence of conscience, prejudice his neighbour 
in his life or estate, or do anything destructive to or inconsistent 
with humane society ; in which case the law is for the transgressor, 
and justice to be administered to all, without respect of persons.” 

Any Church, he contends (in the chapter of the Apology which 
expands this thesis) has the right of spiritual discipline, including 
the excommunication of the obstinate backslider, but “ we would 
not have men hurt in their temporals, nor robbed of their privileges 
as men and members of the commonwealth, because of their inward 
persuasions.” Bodily suffering never brings conviction ; argument, 
reason, and the power of God alone can do this : “ not knocks and 
blows and suchlike things, which may well destroy the body but 
never can inform the soul, which is a free agent, and must either 
accept or reject matters of opinion as they are borne in upon it by 
something proportioned to its own nature.” This argument is as 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 145 

old as Socrates and Plato, but was heretical enough to the Christian 
world of Barclay’s day, to each section of which freedom of opinion 
meant freedom for its own views and suppression of those repugnant 
to itself. Such a policy, he reminds them, may make hypocrites, 
but not Christians, and in a pregnant sentence he declares that 
“ the ground of persecution is an unwillingness to suffer.” Men 
cannot hold their own belief with unshaken confidence if they 
expect that suffering will induce others to abandon theirs. The 
patient and peaceable endurance of the early Friends had already 
proved the most effective way of meeting persecution, since it 
touched the hearts of those engaged in the work, and “ made their 
chariot wheels go very heavily.” The proviso that freedom of 
conscience should not involve anything “ destructive to or incon¬ 
sistent with humane society” was seized upon by critics of the 
Apology , who argued that the refusal to bear arms is itself inimical 
to the safety of society. This charge has often been levelled against 
the Quakers, as it was, by Celsus, against the early Christians. 

In 1679 Barclay wrote a short reply 1 to one John Brown, who 
had published a vehement attack on the Apology and on the whole 
body of Quakers. In regard to wars, “ he chargeth us ” (says 
Barclay) “ with a bloody design ... by disarming Christians [to] 
give up Christendom as a prey to Turks and Pagans. To which 
I shall only answer : that as it is obviously enough malitious, so he 
shall never prove it true : and therefore I wish the Lord rebuke 
him, and forgive him for these his evil thoughts ! ” Brown’s 
further remarks on the necessity of defensive war are “ more like 
an atheist than a Christian, and like one who believeth nothing 
of a divine providence.” Such arguments can never “ brangle 
the faith ” of true believers or make them think “ they are less 
secure under the protection of the Almighty than by their guns 
and swords.” “ How men can love their enemies, and yet kill 
and destroy them is more than I can reach ; but if it were so, such 
as rather suffer than do it do surely more love them, and to do so 
is no injury to ourselves nor neighbours, when done out of conscience 
towards God.” Brown believes in the prophecy of an age of universal 
peace and “ thinks fit there should be a praying for the fulfilling 
of it : and what, if some believe, that (as to some) there is a beginning 
already of the fulfilling thereof?” Thus Barclay virtually adopts 
1 R.B.’s Apology for the True Christian Divinity Vindicated from John Broom's 
Examination. 


10 


146 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

tHe position of Penington, that the conscience of the individual 
or the minority must often be in advance of that of the majority, 
and that ideal Christianity will be established by gradual stages, 
not by a cataclysmic conversion of humanity. His next treatise 
was written in his prison in the Aberdeen Tolbooth during the 
winter of 1676-7. It is curious to note that both Penington’s 
peace tract and Smith’s Banner of Love were also written in prison. 
The “ dens ” of the Stuart reigns inspired the Bedford tinker with 
his immortal dream, and the quantity of Quaker writings of all 
kinds originating from prisons shows how much of the seventeenth- 
century Quaker’s life was spent there. No doubt the tedium and 
discomfort drove the more educated to the solace of composition, 
as it forced the more practical minded, like Thomas Ellwood, to the 
tailoring of red flannel waistcoats. 1 

Universal Love is “a serious inquiry how far charity may 
and ought to be extended towards persons of different judgments 
in matters of religion ” by “ a lover of the souls of all men.” The 
plea for a practical application of the spirit of love among the divers 
sects of Christians is urged with fervour and cogency. Barclay 
tells how his early experience of Presbyterian and Catholic impressed 
him with their mutual intolerance. He brushes aside with contempt 
all pleas for coercion. To rob a man of life, goods, or liberty, or of 
“ the very common and natural benefits of the creation ” and to 
say “ thou dost it for good, and out of the love thou bearest to my 
soul is an argument too ridiculous to be answered, unless the so 
doing did infallibly produce always a change in judgment : the 
very contrary whereof experience has abundantly shown.” He 
again dwells with horror on the “ bloody tragedy ” of the Civil 
War, arising so largely from religious dissensions and “fomented 
from the very pulpits.” No doubt Barclay himself in childhood 
had heard some of these war sermons, and in his thoughtful youth 
the contrast between the Gospel and its .expounders struck him with 
unpleasant force, while he himself was gradually attaining to the 
conviction he here beautifully expresses, that “ God being the 
Fountain and Author of Love, no man can extend true Christian 
love beyond his ; yea, the greatest and highest love of any man 
falls infinitely short of the love of God, even as far as a little drop 
of water falls short of the vast ocean.” Turning to the Quakers, 
he claims that they, more than any other sect, attempt to practise 
1 Ellwood, Journal . 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 147 

this universal love, and in a brief sketch of the origin of the Society 
(which has interesting resemblances to that in Penn’s well-known 
essay prefixed to George Fox’s Journal) he shows to what this 
characteristic should be attributed. “ Friends,” he says, “ were 
not gathered together by a unity of opinion, or by a tedious and 
particular disquisition of notions and opinions, requiring an assent 
to them, and binding themselves by Leagues and Covenants thereto ; 
but the manner of their gathering was by a secret want, which many 
truly tender and serious souls in sundry sects found in themselves : 
which put each sect upon the search of something beyond all opinion 
which might satisfy their weary souls, even the revelation of God’s 
righteous judgment in their hearts. . . . And so many came to 
be joined and united together in heart and spirit in this one Life 
of righteousness who had long been wandering in the several sects ; 
and by the inward unity came to be gathered in one body, from 
whence by degrees they came to find themselves agreed in the plain 
and simple doctrines of Christ. And as this inward power they 
longed for, and felt to give them victory over sin, and bring the 
peace that follows thereon, was that whereby they were brought 
into that unity and community together ; so they came first thence 
to accord in the universal preaching of this power to all, and in 
directing all unto it, which is their first and chiefest principle, and 
most agreeable to this Universal Love.” One of the chief signs 
among Friends, he continues, of this principle of Universal Love, 
“ which necessarily supposeth and includes love to enemies,” is their 
refusal to reconcile Christianity with war or forcible resistance to injury. 
“ He that will beat, kill, and every way he can destroy his enemy, 
does but foolishly contradict himself if he pretend to love him.” 

In the summer of 1677 Barclay had visited Holland and 
Germany in the company of Fox, Penn, and other Friends, and had 
seen the devastation and suffering left by war. His experience 
bore fruit during that autumn in an address to the plenipotentiaries 
who had been already negotiating terms of peace at Nimeguen for 
more than two years. The address in polished Latin, and the 
Latin edition of the Apology , were delivered to each Ambassador, 
possibly by one of the Dutch Friends, in February 1678. 1 The 

i The full title is “ An Epistle of Love and Friendly Advice to the Ambassadors 
of the several Princes of Europe, met at Nimeguen to consult the Peace of Christen¬ 
dom, so far as they are concerned. Wherein the True Cause of the present War is 
discovered, and the Right Remedy and Means for a firm and settled Peaqe fe 


148 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

war had begun in 1672, and was an attempt on the part of Louis XIV 
to subjugate the United Provinces. The courage and wary sagacity 
of William of Orange and his people eventually frustrated the 
scheme, but the wider questions of European policy involved had 
brought about curious alliances during the course of hostilities. 
Protestant Sweden had helped Catholic France, and Charles II 
had employed the English Fleet on Louis’s behalf, much against 
the will of the English people. On the other hand, the Emperor, 
German rulers, Denmark, and even Spain, had taken Holland’s 
side, or rather the side opposed to Franee. The Epistle opens with 
a graceful apology for his intervention. Let it not seem strange 
to them, men chosen for their wisdom and prudence, “ to be 
addressed by one who by the world may be esteemed weak and 
foolish ; whose advice is not ushered unto you by the commission 
of any of the princes of this world, nor seconded by the recom¬ 
mendation of any earthly state. For since your work is that which 
concerns all Christians, why may not every Christian who feels 
himself stirred up of the Lord thereunto, contribute therein ? And 
if they have place to be heard in this affair, who come in the name 
of kings and princes, let it not seem heavy unto you to hear him 
that comes in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who in the truest 
sense is the Head and Governor and chief Bishop of the Church, 
the Most truly Christian and Catholic King ; many of whose subjects 
are concerned in this matter.” Yet, though claiming this divine 
commission for his arguments, Barclay is content to leave the proof 
of their truth “ to the holy and pure witness of God in all your 
consciences, to be received or rejected by you as it shall there be 
approved or not approved.” 

He has been, he tells the Ambassadors, under a deep sense of 
the sufferings of Christendom, and “ being last summer in Holland 
and some parts of Germany the burthen thereof fell often upon 
me, and it several times came before me to write unto you what 
I then saw and felt from God of those things,” but he waited until 

proposed, by R. Barclay. A Lover and Traveller for the Peace of Christendom, 
which was delivered to them in Latin, the 23rd and 24th days of the month called 
February, 1677-8, and now published in English for the satisfaction of such as 
understand not the language (Psalms ii. 10).” A postscript gives a list of 
the assembled delegates, “ the Ambassadors of the Emperor, of the Kings of Great 
Britain, Spain and France, Sweden and Denmark, of the Prince Rector Palatine, 
as also of the States General, and of the Dukes of Lorraine, Holstein, Luxemburg, 
Osnaburg, Hanover, and the Pope’s Nuncio.” 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 149 

the call, on his return to Scotland, became clearer and more insistent. 
The cause of “ all this mischief and confusion and desolation ” 
originates from the “ Author of all Mischief.” Human designs 
and ambitions may be the immediate cause, and the peace settlement 
may attempt to meet these (on the approved principles of diplomacy) 
“ by giving way to some and taking from others according as they 
are more or less formidable and considerable,” but such methods 
can only bring about a temporary peace. “ Those called Chris¬ 
tians . . . are only such in name, and not in nature, having only 
a form and profession of Christianity in show and words, but are 
still strangers, yea, and enemies to the life and virtue of it *, owning 
God and Christ in words, but denying them in works.” The 
want of Christian virtue, notably at the Courts of Christian princes 
(“ nests of vilest vermin ”), dishonours the name of Christian in the 
eyes of the heathen nations. And these rulers in their relations of 
State are equally far from true Christianity. 

“ Upon every slender pretext such as their own small discon¬ 
tents, or that they judge the present peace they have with their 
neighbours cannot suit with their grandeur and wordly glory, they 
sheath their swords in one another’s bowels ; ruin, waste, and 
destroy whole countries ; expose to the greatest misery many 
thousand families ; make thousands of widows and ten thousands 
of orphans ; cause the banks to overflow with the blood of those 
for whom the Lord Jesus shed his precious blood ; and spend and 
destroy many of the good creatures of God. And all this while 
they pretend to be followers of the lamb-like Jesus, who came not 
to destroy men’s lives but to save them, the song of whose appearance 
to the world was, ‘ Glory to God in the highest, and good will and 
peace to all men ’ : not to kill, murder, and destroy men ; not to 
hire and force poor men to run upon and murder one another, 
merely to satisfy the lust and ambition of great men ; they being 
often times ignorant of the ground of the quarrel, and not having 
the least occasion of evil or prejudice against those their fellow 
Christians whom they thus kill ; amongst whom not one of a 
thousand perhaps ever saw one another before.” 

“ Is it not so ? ” asks Barclay, in conclusion to this spirited 
picture of the horrors of war. To him the position of the clergy 
(“ for the most part the greatest promoters and advisers of these 
wars ”) is especially horrible, and their prayers and thanksgivings 
for the destruction of brother Christians seem nothing better than 


150 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY* 

blasphemy. In the shifting tangle of alliances, all bonds of religious 
fellowship are broken, French Catholics and Huguenots praying for 
the defeat of Spanish Catholics and Dutch Protestants, and other 
paradoxical situations arising, of which Barclay could find examples 
enough and to spare in the existing war. 

“ The ground then of all this,” he reiterates, “ is the want of 
true Christianity—the proud, ambitious, Luciferian nature that 
sets princes and States at work to contrive and foment wars, and 
engages people to fight together, some for ambition and vain glory, 
and some for covetousness and hope of gain. And the same cause 
doth move the clergy to concur with their share in making their 
prayers turn and twine, and so all are out from the state of true 
Christianity.” Yet all claim to have a truly Christian desire for 
peace, although the very peace they succeed in making belies their 
claim. “ How is peace brought about ? Is it not when the 
weaker is forced to give way to the stronger, without respect to 
the equity of the cause ? Is not this known and manifest in many, 
if not most of the pacifications that have been made in Chris¬ 
tendom ? ” 

Here Barclay turns aside for a moment to explain that he is no 
Anarchist or Ranter, but has a due respect for authority. “ Yet 
nevertheless, I judge it no prejudice to magistracy nor injury to 
any for one that is called of the Lord Jesus to appear in this affair, 
for he is not a little concerned—his authority has been contemned ; 
his law broken ; his life oppressed ; his standard of peace pulled 
down and rent; his government encroached upon : (what shall 
I say ?) his precious blood shed, and himself afresh crucified, and 
put to open shame by the murders and cruelties that have attended 
those wars.” 

Unless the negotiators bear these things in mind their efforts 
for a lasting peace will not avail. They may bring the warring 
potentates to be “ good friends and dear allies,” but when a pretext 
for war appears “ all your articles will not bind them, but they will 
break them like straws.” Strong rulers may not even trouble to 
find a pretext other than the assertion “ that to be at peace is no 
longer consistent with their glory.” The evil passions that are the 
cause of war must be quelled before peace can be established. 
Worldly wisdom cannot accomplish this, rather it finds its work 
in the incitement to war. 

“ Let me exhort you then seriously to examine yourselves by 


ROBERT BARCLAY THE APOLOGIST 151 

the light of Jesus Christ in you, that can alone discover unto you 
your own hearts, and will not flatter you (as men may) whether 
you be fit for this work you are set about ? ” This divine light 
and peaceable spirit alone can guide them in the settlement of peace, 
and Barclay relates how it has led Friends in the past. 

“ Many of them, who have been wise according to the wisdom 
of the world, have learned to lay it down at the feet of Jesus, that 
they might receive from him of his pure and heavenly wisdom ; 
being contented in the enjoyment of that by the world to be 
accounted fools. And also many of them who were fighters, and 
even renowned for their skill and valour in warring, have come 
by the influence of this pure light to beat their swords into plough¬ 
shares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and not to learn carnal 
war any more, being redeemed from the lusts from which the 
fighting comes. And there are thousands whom God hath brought 
here already, who see to the end of all contention and strife, and 
that for which the world contends, and albeit the Devil be angry 
at them—because he knows they strike at the very root and founda¬ 
tion of his kingdom in men’s hearts—by a patient enduring in the 
spirit of Jesus, they do and shall overcome.” But to clear their 
minds of the calumnies attached to such doctrines, Barclay sends 
them the Apology , to be read and considered by them and the princes 
they represent, that they may learn the principles which would 
bring “ peace and quietness and felicity to all, both outward and 
inward. And so his conscience is discharged in love to their souls 
and for the common peace and good of Christendom.” 

Several treaties were concluded between the separate belligerents 
during the year 1678, and hostilities ceased for the time, but 
Barclay’s predictions were more than fulfilled. Although Louis 
had attained much military glory, he had failed in his aim—the 
conquest of the Netherlands, and the latter State had not shown 
sufficient strength to remove the fear of a fresh attack. As for 
the other Powers, a modern historian writes : “ The concert of 
Europe was partial and ill-cemented and, although peace had been 
made, could not be other than short-lived, in face of the jealousies 
of the various States, which the fear of France had temporarily 
united.” “ It was,” says another, “ an armed truce rather than a 
permanent settlement of differences.” 1 

The influence of Barclay on the non-Quaker world was chiefly 
1 Cambridge Modem History , v. 46 and 165. 


152 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

exerted through the Apology. It is not too much to say that for the 
next hundred years inquirers into the Quaker doctrines were 
referred to that work for satisfaction. Voltaire read it, apparently 
in the Latin version, during his residence in England, and quoted 
with approval from the section on War. The strong wave of 
Evangelicism which passed over a portion of the Society in the 
early nineteenth century led to some depreciation of early Quaker 
writings, on the ground that their teaching as to the divinity and 
redemptive power of Christ was insufficiently clear. One result 
was to depose the Apology from its quasi-authoritative position—a 
result not to be deplored in so far as it emphasized the truth that 
the Society of Friends is a living organism which gives no unques¬ 
tioning allegiance either to tradition or the written word. But 
Barclay’s application of the religious principles of the Society to 
practical life, including the question of war, has always remained 
in harmony with the convictions of the great bulk of its members. 


CHAPTER VI 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 

William Penn, Oxford scholar and fine gentleman, son of Admiral 
Penn (who was a servant first of the Commonwealth and later of 
Charles II) seemed a most unlikely subject for conversion to 
Quakerism. Yet, even in his schoolboy and student days he had 
attended Friends’ Meetings, where the preaching of Thomas Loe 
had deeply affected him and, his zeal outrunning his wisdom, some 
breach of University regulations led to his removal from Oxford. 1 
A course of foreign travel and study was intended to cure his 
“notions,” and he seemed in Pepys’ eyes Frenchified enough 
when he returned to London to attend the Court and read a little 
law. In 1666—7 h e was sent over t0 transact some business on his 
father’s Irish estates. At Cork he attended a Friends’ Meeting, 
where his old friend, Thomas Loe, spoke on the theme of “ the faith 
that overcometh the world and the faith that is overcome by the 
world.” As he listened the young man of twenty-two made his 
life’s decision. It is worth noting that on this visit to Ireland he 
took part in an attack on some “ rebels,” or mutinous soldiers, and 
was offered a commission by the Duke of Ormonde. The one 
authentic portrait, which dates from this period, shows a handsome 
youth in a suit of armour. Prison, for attending the Cork meetings, 
was at once his lot, but powerful friends secured his release. He 
returned to England a Quaker, to meet the pathetic and puzzled 
opposition of his father. Soon he visited the Tower and Newgate 
for publishing and preaching the new heresy. The trial of Penn 
and Mead in 1670 is famous for its incidental establishment of the 

x S. Janney, Life of Penn , is a full and trustworthy memoir. Joseph Besse 
wrote a valuable account of Penn, as preface to the 1726 edition of his Works. 
Principal J. W. Graham’s volume, William Penn, deals especially fully with his 
early life and his writings. 


153 


154 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

right of juries to return a free verdict. 1 In the same year his 
father died, after learning to respect his son’s new creed.* Penn’s 
missionary tour with Barclay and Fox in Holland and Germany 
has already been mentioned. The sufferings of Friends in England 
turned his mind to the refuge of the New World. With Barclay 
and a number of other Friends, he acquired the proprietorship of 
New Jersey. In 1681 he received from the Crown, in settle¬ 
ment of debts due to his father, the grant of wide territories further 
up the Delaware ; next year he established the province of 
Pennsylvania, the “ holy experiment ” in Quaker government 
and liberty of conscience. The story of Pennsylvanian policy in 
peace and war is told in another chapter. After his return to 
England, he was a shocked and unwilling spectator of the cruelties 
which followed the Monmouth rebellion ; he used his undoubted 
influence with James II (an old friend of the Admiral) to free his 
fellow Quakers from their prisons, and he supported and welcomed 
the Declaration of Indulgence. The King even employed him as 
an emissary to William of Orange, but after the Revolution he 
fell (unjustly) under suspicion of conspiracy to restore James, and 
he was not cleared of the charge until 1694 when Pennsylvania 
(which had been placed under a royal deputy) was restored to him. 
The later years of his life were clouded by financial troubles and at 
times by constitutional disputes with the Pennsylvanians, aggravated 
by his mistaken choice of deputies. When he and his people were 
able to meet, the real respect and confidence they felt towards him 
was strong enough to clear away misunderstandings. He died in 
1718, after several years of enfeebling illness. 

Deep religious feeling, undaunted courage, wide tolerance, 
good sense, and enthusiasm for freedom, were Penn’s main 
characteristics. His most serious defect was the mistaken estimate 
he often formed of his subordinates, which involved him in public 
and private difficulties. Freedom of conscience, with Penn as with 

* Through Bushell's Case . Bushell was foreman of the jury which in spite of 
threats from the judge, imprisonment, and starvation steadily returned a verdict 
of “ Not Guilty,” until at last they amended it to one that Penn was “ Guilty 
of speaking in Gracechurch Street. William Mead not guilty.” “ Speaking ” 
not being a criminal offence the judge was baffled, and in revenge fined the jury. 
Bushell appealed against the legality of the fine, and won his case. 

* On his death-bed he said : “ Son William, if you and your friends keep to 
your plain way yf preaching, and keep to your plain way of living, you will make 
an end of the priests to the end of the world ” (quoted by his son in the later editions 
of No Cross , No Crown). 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 155 

Barclay, was a deep and passionate conviction. In 1678, amid 
the dangers and delirium of the “ Popish Plot,” he attended a 
parliamentary committee to protest against the injustice which 
confounded Quakers with Roman Catholics, because both refused 
the Test Oaths. “ Yet,” he continued, “ we do not mean that any 
should take a fresh aim at them, or that they must come in our room : 
for we must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be false to our 
principles, though it were to relieve ourselves. For we have good¬ 
will to all men, and would have none suffer for a truly sober and 
conscientious dissent on any hand ; and I humbly take leave to add, 
that those methods against persons so qualified, do not seem to me 
convincing, or indeed adequate, to the reason of mankind ; but 
this I submit to your discretion.” 1 

“ This ” was doctrine too high for Parliament for many years 
to come, but the speech shows us not only why Friends welcomed 
the Declaration of Indulgence, but also why the grotesque cry of 
“ Papist ” or “ Jesuit ” was raised against them. A disinterested 
passion for justice and fair play is, happily, not rare among our 
countrymen. It is the more perplexing, therefore, that when it 
is active in an unpopular cause, its advocates are so often accused 
of private and selfish interests. In a later work, 2 Penn describes 
instances of Protestant intolerance, which are not a reproach “against 
Protestancy, but very much against Protestants.” In another direc¬ 
tion Penn’s thoughts were generations in advance of his time. He 
never accepted the social system, with its sharp divisions of wealth 
and poverty, as a divine ordinance. The pithy apothegms in Fruits 
of Solitude give his mature views on the taxation of luxury, the 
equalization of income, and other problems which have a strangely 
modern ring. These views had changed little since he wrote in his 
ardent youth : “ That the sweat and tedious labour of the husband¬ 
men, early and late, cold and hot, wet and dry, should be converted 
into the pleasure, ease, and pastime of a small number of men ; 
that the cart, the plough, the thrash, should be in that continual 
severity laid upon nineteen parts of the land, to feed the inordinate 
lusts and delicious appetites of the twentieth, is so far from the 
appointment of the great Governor of the world, and God of the 
spirits of all flesh that to imagine such horrible injustice as the effect 

* Life of Penn : Select Works, p. 46. There is an interesting comment on 
Penn’s attitude in G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, p. 436. 

3 Good Advice to the Church of England, 1687. 


156 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

of his determinations, and not the intemperance of men, were 
wretched and blasphemous.” 1 2 

On the question of outward wars and fighting, if we believe 
the often-quoted anecdote, he soon made up his mind. Like other 
young men of fashion, he wore a sword, and one day after his con- 
vincement he asked the advice of Fox about the custom, saying 
that once in Paris it had saved his life, as he had been able to disarm 
and put to flight a highwayman. Fox simply replied : “ Wear it as 
long as thou canst.” Shortly afterwards they met again, and this 
time Penn had no sword. 3 4 The story is certainly characteristic 
of Fox. 

When, during one of his many trials, on this occasion for unlawful 
preaching, the oath of allegiance was offered to Penn in the form 
“ that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatever, to take up arms 
against the King,” he refused on the ground “ I cannot fight against 
any man, much less against the King,” and “ it is both my practice 
and all my friends to instil principles of peace and moderation.” 
While in Newgate, serving his sentence, he wrote a memorial to 
Parliament emphasizing the submission of Friends to all lawful 
demands of the civil government .3 

In his Works there are many plain assertions of the unchristian 
nature of war. “Even the Turks,” he says ,4 “are outdone by 
apostate Christians ; whose practice is therefore more condemnable, 
because they have been better taught: they have had a master of 
another doctrine and example. It is true they call him Lord still, 
but let their ambition reign ; they love power more than one 
another, and to get it, kill one another, though charged by him 
not to strive, but to love and serve one another. ... A very trifle 
is too often made a ground of quarrel here : nor can any league 
be so sacred or inviolable, that arts shall not be used to evade and 

1 No Cross, No Crown (1669), pp. 61-2. 

2 The original source of the story is unknown. It was first printed by Janney 
in his Life of Penn (Philadelphia, 1851). He had it from oral tradition in America. 

s In the famous trial of Mead and Penn (September 1670), Mead (an old soldier) 
protested against the terms of the indictment “ which is a bundle of stuff, full of 
lies and falsehood ; for therein I am accused that I met <vi et armis, illiciti et 
tumultuosi. Time was, when I had freedom to use a carnal weapon, and then I 
thought I feared no man $ but now I fear the living God, and dare not make use 
thereof, nor hurt any man $ nor do I know I demeaned myself as a tumultuous 
person. I say I am a peaceable man.” (“ The People’s Ancient and Just Liberties 
Asserted, in the Trial of William Penn and William Mead.” Penn’s Works) 

4 No Cross, No Crown , ch. viii* sects. 6 and 7. 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 157 

dissolve it, to increase dominion. No matter who, nor how many 
are slain, made widows and orphans or lose their estates and 
livelihoods : what countries are ruined, what towns and cities 
spoiled ; if by all these things the ambitious can but arrive at their 
ends.” And he calls as witness the bloody history of the seventeenth 
century. The last sixty years “ will furnish us with many wars 
begun upon ill grounds, and ended in great desolation.” Quoting 
the seventh Beatitude, he comments that Christ did not say “ Blessed 
are the contentious, backbiters, tale-bearers, brawlers, fighters, 
and makers of war ; neither shall they be called the children of 
God, whatever they may call themselves.” 1 In several passages 
he explains and defends the Quaker position. Once he says half- 
humorously, “ they cannot kill or slay their own kind, and so are 
not fit for warriors,” but he goes on in seriousness, “ let not this 
people be thought useless or inconsistent with Governments, for 
introducing that harmless, glorious way to this distracted world 
(for somebody must begin it), but rather adore the providence, embrace 
the principle, and cherish and follow the example.” 1 

In another place he says : “ As this is the most Christian, so the 
most rational way : love and persuasion having more force than 
weapons of war. Nor would the worst of men easily be brought 
to hurt those that they really think love them. It is that love and 
patience which must in the end have the victory .”3 In the long 
and able account of the Quakers which Penn prefixed to the first 
edition of George Fox’s Journal 4 he condenses their peace 
testimony into the phrase “ not fighting, but suffering ” “ As 

truth-speaking succeeded swearing, so faith and truth succeeded 
fighting, in the doctrine and practice of this people. Nor ought 
they for this to be obnoxious to civil government, since if they 
cannot fight for it, neither can they fight against it; which is no 
mean security to the State ; nor is it reasonable that people should 
be blamed for not doing more for others than they can do for 
themselves. And Christianity set aside, if the costs and fruits 
of war were well considered, peace, with its inconveniences, is 
generally preferable.” He contributed another preface to the 
posthumous edition of Barclay’s Works, “Truth Triumphant.” 

1 No Cross , No Crown, ch. xx, sect. 1. 

a “A Key opening the way to every Capacity to distinguish the Religion 
professed by the people called Quakers, etc.” (1692, Penn’s Works). 

i “ Primitive Christianity Revived, etc.” (Penn’s Works). 4 In 1694. 


158 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

In this he speaks with admiration of the Epistle of Love. It is still 
only too much needed. “ Is not the wrath of God revealed 
sufficiently against us in the faction, strife, war, blood, and poverty, 
that we see almost all over Europe this day ? God Almighty make 
people sensible and weary of it, and the cause of it their sins— 
sins against light, against conscience and knowledge, their unfaithful¬ 
ness to God and man, their scandalous immorality, and most inordi¬ 
nate love of the world, the ground of all contention and mischief 
—that so the peace of God which passeth worldly men’s under¬ 
standing, may fill all our hearts through repentance and conversion. 
Amen. I have been the longer,” he adds, “ in my notes upon this 
occasion, than I expected ; but our present condition in Europe 
drew it from me, that needs an olive branch, the doctrine of peace, 
as much as ever.” 

Europe, indeed, rent and distracted by the war of the League 
of Augsburg against Louis XIV, presented a sorry spectacle for any 
peace lover. Penn’s three years of retirement had given him time 
for thought and study. On the religious side its fruits were shown 
in the studies of Quakerism already mentioned, on the political 
and practical side in the “ Essay towards the present and future 
peace of Europe,” published in the year 1693-4. 1 After Dante’s 
dream of a Europe united under the spiritual guidance of the Pope 
and the temporal rule of the Empire had faded before the realities of 
the Reformation, a new hope arose of a federal Union of Christian 
nations deliberating and settling differences in a general Council, 
maintaining national independence and unbroken peace among 
themselves but presenting an impassable barrier to the tide of Turkish 
aggression. This scheme of federation was first mooted in the 
Grand dessein of Henry IV and Sully, as recorded by that statesman, 
and gained the approval of Elizabeth of England. But the assassination 
of Henry ended the project, and though Grotius wrote in favour 
of arbitration, and though the seventeenth century saw the machinery 
of an international congress used, at least, to terminate war in the 

* An essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe, by the Establish¬ 
ment of an European Dyet, Parliament, or Estates. “ Beati Pacijici. Cedant 
Arma Toga." The essay was included in his Works (2 vols., 1726), and was 
brought to the notice of the Peace Congress at Paris in 1851. In 1897 it was 
published as a pamphlet by the American Peace Society at Boston and re-published, 
with a preface by J. B. Braithwaite, in December 1914 by John Bellows, Gloucester, 
It is also included in a volume of selections from Penn in Everyman’s Library", 
The Peace of Europe , The Fruits of Solitude , and other writings by William Penn’ 
1916. 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 159 

negotiations preceding the peace of Westphalia, yet the dessein 
rusted in neglect, until Penn brought it again to light. 1 In his 
enforced leisure he had read Sully’s Memoirs and Sir William 
Temple’s Account of the United Provinces. The former set forth 
the elaborated scheme, while the latter showed the successful working 
of federal government in the example of Holland. Penn was fired 
by the ambition that England, too, might play her part in so great a 
work. “ For this great King’s example tells us it is fit to be done 
and Sir William Temple’s History shows us by a surpassing instance 
that it may be done ; and Europe, by her incomparable miseries, 
makes it now necessary to be done. ... My share is only thinking 
of it at this juncture and putting it into the common light for the 
peace and prosperity of Europe.” 3 

At the outset Penn disclaims any intention of preaching a 
millenary doctrine. His design is a practical one, and of all reforms, 
this was most likely in his judgment to increase the happiness and 
prosperity of mankind. How was it that nations went to war when 
the miseries of war were so overwhelming and unmistakable ? 
The groaning state of Europe called for peace. 

“What can we desire better than peace, but the grace to use 
it ? Peace preserves our possessions ; we are in no danger of 
invasions ; our trade is free and safe, and we rise and lie down 
without anxiety. The rich bring out their hoards, and employ the 
poor manufacturers ; buildings and divers projections, for profit 
and pleasure, go on : it excites industry, which brings wealth, as 
that gives the means of charity and hospitality, not the lowest 
ornaments of a kingdom or commonwealth. But war, like the frost 
of ’83, seizes all these comforts at once, and stops the civil channel 
of society. The rich draw in their stock, the poor turn soldiers, 
or thieves, or starve ; no industry, no building, no manufactory, 
little hospitality or charity ; but what the peace gave, the war 
devours.” 

The explanation seems to be that men are passionate, obstinate, 
slow to learn, and quick to forget the lessons of experience. It is 

1 Vide The Arbiter in Council, , pp. 276-90, for a summary of the grand dessein. 
Grotius published De Jure Belli et Pads in 1625. In the Nouveau Cyn'ee a year 
before, a French writer, Emeric de Cruc6, pleaded for a permanent court of 

arbitration. . 

1 The following summary is borrowed from the Arbiter in Council , pp. 299-305, 
by permission of my brother, Mr. F. W. Hirst. Some further quotations have 
been added. 


160 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

a mark, Penn thought of the corruption of our natures that we 
cannot taste the benefit of health without a bout of sickness, or 
enjoy plenty without the instruction of want, “ nor finally know 
the comfort of peace but by the smart and penance of the vices 
of war.” 

From the evils of war Penn passes in a second section to the 
means of peace. Peace can only be established and maintained 
by justice. “ The advantage that justice has upon war is seen by the 
success of embassies that so often prevent war by hearing the pleas 
and memorials of justice in the hands and mouths of the wronged 
party.” War on behalf of justice, i.e. where you have been wronged, 
and redress has been refused upon complaint, is a remedy almost 
always worse than the disease, “ the aggressors seldom getting what 
they seek or performing, if they prevail,what they promised.” Justice, 
therefore, is the true means of peace, to prevent strife between 
Governments, or between governors, and governed. Peace, there¬ 
fore, must be maintained by justice, which is a fruit of government, 
“as government is from society, and society from consent.” This 
thesis is developed and explained in a third section entitled, 
“ Government : its rise and end under all models.” 

“ Government is an expedient against confusion ; a restraint 
upon all disorder ; just weights and an even balance ; that one may 
not injure another, nor himself by intemperance.” 

The most natural and human basis of government is consent, 
* for that binds freely (as I may say) when men hold their liberty 
by true obedience to rules of their own making. No man is judge 
in his own cause, which ends in the confusion and blood of so many 
judges and executioners.” 1 Penn concludes his introduction by 
explaining that in these three first sections he has briefly treated 
of Peace, Justice, and Government, “ because the ways and methods 
by which peace is preserved in particular Governments will help those 
readers most concerned in my proposal to conceive with what ease 
as well as advantage the peace of Europe might be procured and kept; 
which is the end designed by me, with all submission to those 
interested in this little treatise.” 

1 “ Government, then, is the prevention and cure of disorder, and the means of 
justice, as that is of peace ; for this cause they have sessions, terms, assizes, and 
parliaments, to overrule men’s passions and resentments. ... So depraved is 
human nature that without compulsion, some way or other, too many would not 
readily be brought to do what they know is right and fit, or to avoid what they 
are satisfied they should not do.” 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 161 

In his first section he had shown the desirableness of peace ; 
in his next the truest means of it, to wit y justice, not war ; and in the 
third, “ that this justice was the fruit of good government.” Then 
follows in section four, the proposal or design itself, which must be 
given in Penn’s own words : 

“Now, if the Soveraign Princes of Europe, who represent 
that society, or independent state of men that was previous to the 
obligations of society, would, for the same reason that engaged men 
first into society, viz : love of peace and order, agree to meet by 
their stated deputies in a general Dyet, estates, or parliament, and 
there establish rules of justice for soveraign princes to observe one 
to another ; and thus to meet yearly, or once in two or three years 
at farthest, or as they shall see cause, and to be stiled, the soveraign 
or imperial Dyet, parliament, or state of Europe ; before which 
soveraign assembly, should be brought all differences depending 
between one soveraign and another, that can not be made up by 
private embassies before the sessions begin ; and that if any of 
the soveraignties that constitute these imperial states, shall refuse 
to submit their claim or pretensions to them, or to abide and perform 
the judgment thereof, and seek their remedy by arms, or delay their 
compliance beyond the time prefixt in their resolutions, all the other 
soveraignties, united as one strength, shall compel the submission 
and performance of the sentence, with damages to the suffering 
party, and charges to the soveraignties that obliged their submission : 
to be sure, Europe would quietly obtain the so much desired and 
needed peace, to her harassed inhabitants ; no soveraignty in Europe 
having the power and therefore can not show the will to dispute 
the conclusion ; and consequently, peace would be procured, and 
continued in Europe.” 

In a fifth section Penn reviews the causes of difference and 
the motives that lead States or their rulers to settle such differences 
by war rather than by diplomacy or arbitration. The motives of 
war are three : namely, Defence, Recovery, Aggression. Penn 
imagines the warlike aggressor saying to himself: “ Knowing 

my own strength I will be my own judge and carver.” The aggressor 
would have no chance in the Imperial States of federated Europe ; 
but any State claiming protection, or the right to recover territory 
of which it had been deprived, would be heard whenever it chose 
to plead before the sovereign court of Europe and there find justice 

Thus Penn (in the sixth section) is led to consider the titles by 
II 


162 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

which territories may be held or claimed. A title comes by right 
of long succession, as in England and France, or as in Poland and 
the Empire by election, or by purchase, as often in Italy and Germany, 
or by marriage, or lastly by conquest—as the French in Lorraine, 
and the Turks in Christendom. What titles then are good and what 
bad ? These problems must be left to the sovereign States and the 
international court to deal with and decide in each case. But Penn 
was ready to show upon what principle such controversies would 
be decided, by an examination of titles. He decides that all are good 
except the last. Conquest only gives a questionable title, morally 
speaking, “ engross’d and recorded by the point of the sword, and 
in bloody characters.” When conquest has been confirmed by treaty 
it is an adopted title. “ Tho’ that hath not always extinguished 
the fire, but it lies, like ember and ashes, ready to kindle so soon 
as there is fit matter prepared for it.” If there is to be a restitution 
of conquests it is a tender point where to begin. Could they go back, 
for instance, to the Peace of Nimeguen ? 

In a seventh section Penn describes the constitution of his 
European Parliament. The number of delegates sent by each country 
should be in proportion to its wealth, revenue, and population. 
These would have to be accurately ascertained ; but Penn makes 
the following guess. He allows twelve representatives to Germany, 
ten to France, ten to Spain, ten to Turkey, and ten to Muscovy. 1 
Italy was to have eight, England six, the Seven United Provinces 
of Holland, “ Sweedland,” and Poland four each. Venice and 
Portugal were to send three delegates apiece, and the smaller States in 
proportion. Ninety delegates in all would form the Diet. Its first 
session should be held in some central town ; after that the delegates 
would choose their place of meeting. 

In the eighth section he gives some details for the regulation 
of his Imperial States in session. Thus, “ to avoid quarrel for 
precedency the room may be round [as at the first Hague Conference] 
and have divers doors, to come in and go out at, to prevent excep¬ 
tions.” Members should preside by turns ; voting should be by ballot 
to secure independence and to prevent corruption. A majority 
of three-quarters should be necessary and “ neutralities in debates 
should be no wise endured.” The language used would be Latin 

1 The grand dessein contemplated aggressive action against Turkey and was 
doubtful whether to admit Russia, “ almost a barbarous country,” or to expel 
the Czar from his European territory (.Arbiter in Council , p. 283). 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 163 

or French—the first would be best for civilians, the second for men 
of quality. 

In section nine he entertains some objections that might be 
advanced against his design. First it might be said that the richest 
and the strongest sovereignty would never agree to this “ European 
League or Confederacy,” and there would be danger of corruption 
if it did agree. A more plausible objection was that disuse of the 
trade of soldiery would lead to effeminacy, and a deficiency of soldiers, 
as happened in Holland to 1672. But each nation would instruct 
and discipline its youth as it pleased. Manliness, says Penn, depends 
on education. You want men to be men, not either lions or women. 
Teach them mechanical knowledge and natural philosophy, and 
the art of government, “ how to be useful and serviceable, both 
to themselves and others : and how to save and help, not injure 
or destroy.” No State would be allowed to keep a disproportionately 
large army, or one formidable to the confederacy. Another objec¬ 
tion would be that if the trade of soldier declined, there would be 
no employment for the younger brothers of noble families, and 
further, if the poor could not enlist they must become thieves. 
Penn answers that the poor should be brought up to be neither 
thieves nor soldiers but useful citizens. Education, next to the 
immediate welfare of the nation, “ ought of all things to be the care 
and skill of the government. For such as the youth of any country 
is bred, such is the next generation, and the government in good 
or bad hands.” Again, it would be said : “ Sovereign States will cease 
to be sovereign, and that they won’t endure.” No, for they remain 
just as sovereign at home as ever they were. Is there less sovereignty 
“ because the great fish can no longer eat up the little ones ? ” 

Finally, Penn recounts “the real benefits that flow from this 
proposal about peace.” (1) Not the least is that it prevents spilling 
much “ humane ” and Christian blood. “ And tho’ the chiefest 
in government are seldom personally exposed, yet it is a duty incumbent 
upon them to be tender of the lives of their people ; since without 
all doubt, they are accountable to God for the blood that is spilt 
in their service. So that besides the loss of so many lives, of 
importance to any government, both for labour and propagation, 
the cries of so many widows, parents, and fatherless are prevented, 
that cannot be very pleasant in the ears of any government, and is 
the natural consequence of war in all government.” 

(2) It will in some degree recover the reputation of Christianity 


164 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TEST I MONT 

in the sight of infidels. “ Here,” he says, “ is a wide field for the 
reverend clergy of Europe to act that part in . . . May they recom¬ 
mend and labour this pacific means I offer.” 

(3) It releases the funds of princes and peoples, which can go to 
learning, charity, manufactures, etc. 

(4) Border towns and countries like Flanders and Hungary 
will be saved from the rage and waste of war. 

(5) It will afford “ ease and security of travel and traffic, an 
happiness never understood since the Roman Empire has been 
broken into so many sovereignties.” We may easily conceive, he adds, 
the comfort and advantage of travelling through the governments 
of Europe by a pass from any of the sovereignties of it, which this 
league and state of peace will naturally make authentic. “ They 
that have travelled Germany, where is so great a number of 
sovereignties, know the want and value of this privilege, by the 
many stops and examinations they meet with by the way ; but 
especially such as have made the grand tour of Europe.” 

(6) Europe will be secured against Turkish inroads, which have 
usually occurred through the carelessness or connivance of some 
Christian prince. But Penn looked to the inclusion of the Turk 
in the federation, “ for the security of what he holds in Europe,” 
and not to a Christian crusade to drive him from these possessions. 

(7) It will beget friendship between princes and States ; and 
from communion and intercourse will spring emulation in good 
laws, learning, arts, and architecture. 

“ For princes have the curiosity of seeing the Courts and cities 
of other countries, as well as private men, if they could as securely 
and familiarly gratify their inclinations. It were a great motive 
to the tranquillity of the world : that they could freely converse face 
to face , and personally and reciprocally give and receive marks of 
civility and kindness. An hospitality that leaves these impressions 
behind it, will harldy let ordinary matters prevail, to mistake or 
quarrel one another.” 

In short, reciprocal hospitality and intercourse will plant peace 
in a deep and fruitful soil. 

(8) Princes will be able to marry for love, and family affections 
will not be crushed by dynastic quarrels and reasons of State. Penn, 
probably thinking of his own happy marriage and of the embittered 
life of James II, declares that “ the advantage of private men upon 
princes by their family comforts is a sufficient balance against their 


1 V 1 LL 1 AM PENN AND JOHN SELLERS 165 

greater power and glory.” Thus he ends his proposal of means 
whereby “ the same rules of justice and prudence by which parents 
and masters govern their families, and magistrates their cities, and 
estates their republics, and princes and kings their principalities 
and kingdoms, Europe may obtain and preserve peace among her 
sovereignties.” According to Besse, the work was so well received 
by the general public that a second edition was issued in the same 
year. 


11. 

Penn’s plan for a reasonable European settlement, if not un¬ 
noticed, was at least untried. The Treaty of Ryswick, 1697, on ty 
secured a brief truce until the War of the Spanish Succession brought 
suffering once more upon the peoples. And once more a Friend 
was found to plead for peace and federation. John Bellers is an 
interesting and unique figure in the annals of the Society. 1 He was 
not a child of his generation, but belongs much more to those groups 
of philanthropic reformers who arose in England and France in 
the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and who were agents 
in the removal of so many abuses. Half a century later he might 
have received from the overseers of his meeting a gentle reproof 
for excessive “ creaturely activity,” but in Queen Anne’s reign 
Friends listened patiently to his schemes, and in one or two instances 
even put them in some degree into practice. Bellers was born in 1654, 
the son of a prosperous Quaker grocer in the City of London. By 
his marriage to Frances Fettiplace, also a Friend and heiress of an 
old Gloucestershire family, he inherited a small estate at Coin 
St. Aldwyn, and he seems to have led a life of leisure and some 
affluence. He was a member of the Meeting for Sufferings, which 
relieved the necessities of Friends in prison or otherwise distressed, 
and he was eager in pressing upon Friends as a body and on his own 
local meetings their obligation to maintain and provide for the poor. 

His scheme for a “College of Industry,” published in 1695, 
influenced the Society in the foundation of a “ School and work- 
house ” at Clerkenwell seven years later, which, after various changes, 
has taken modern shape as a large co-education boarding school 
at Saffron Walden. Bellers’ own proposal was in many ways a curious 
anticipation of Socialist theories. In 1818 Robert Owen and Francis 

1 There is a good account of Bellers as writer and philanthropist in Braithwaite, 
Second Period of Quakerism , pp. 571 foil. 


166 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TEST I MONT 

Place reprinted the pamphlet on the “ College,” claiming it as a 
forecast of Owen’s plan for an industrial commonwealth. Karl 
Marx has described Bellers as a “ phenomenon ” in the history 
of political economy, and in 1895 Edward Bernstein made him 
the subject of a very careful study, based on original research, in 
the large History of Socialism compiled by German Socialists. 
Throughout his life he was busied with philanthropic plans, which 
he urged in numerous pamphlets on Electoral Reform, Hospital 
Reform, Prison Reform, and other topics that are still with us to-day. 
He was a friend of Penn and of the celebrated physician Sir Hans 
Sloane, but, apart from his benevolent activities, little is known of 
his life, although it did not end until 1725. The peace tract, which 
is his chief title to notice here, was published in 1710, after the War 
of the Spanish Succession had for nine years consumed uncounted 
lives and treasure. 

The tract, “ Some Reasons for an European State,” 1 opens 
with a series of dedications or addresses. The first, to Queen Anne, 
expresses the assurance that she at least would welcome the 
prospect of a rational peace since “ crowns have cares sufficient 
in the best of times.” Lest she should think the prospect of a 
European federation chimerical, she is reminded that “ the ten 
Saxon, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish Kingdoms are now happily united 
in one Government, to the saving of much humane blood.” Then, 
turning to “ the Lords and Commons of Great Britain in Parlia¬ 
ment assembled,” Bellers points out to them that the “ deluge of 
Christian blood and the vast treasure which have been spent to 
procure the expected peace, is a most powerful argument of the 
necessity when made that it may be perpetual if possible.” The 
first essential step, in his view, is that England and her Allies should 
establish a Supreme Court “ to decide their future disputes without 
blood.” If then an invitation is extended to all the Neutral Powers 
to join this Court “ it will draw on the peace the faster (if not made 

1 Some reasons for an European State, proposed to the Powers of Europe by 
an Universal Guarantee, and an Annual Congress, Senate, Dyet, or Parliament, 
to settle any disputes about the bounds and rights of Princes and States hereafter. 
With an abstract of a scheme formed by King Henry IV of France, upon the same 
subject. And also, a proposal for a General Council or Convocation of all the 
different religious persuasions in Christendom (not to dispute what they differ 
about, but) to settle the General Principles they agree in : by which it will appear 
that they may be good subjects and neighbours, though of different apprehensions 
of the way to Heaven. In order to prevent broils and wars at home, when foreign 
wars are ended (1 Peter iv. 8. London, printed Anno 1710). 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 167 

before) and the more incline France itself to come into it, by 
which that kingdom will reap the blessings of a lasting peace, which 
their present King’s grandfather had formerly proposed.” The details 
of the scheme are then worked out in the body of the pamphlet. 

At the opening Bellers lays stress upon the economic argument, 
and estimates the waste of labour and wealth by a strangely modern 
use of statistics. 

If we suppose this war since ’88 hath cost the French 
Crown 12 Millions Sterling a year. In 20 years it 
comes to... ... ... ... ... ... ... £240,000,000 

For which 12 Millions a year, if reckoned at 6 per cent., 

the interest (compound) comes to ... ... ... £200,000,000 

Which in all make. £440,000,000 

And besides that they have lost 30 thousand men a year 
at least, that in 20 years comes to 600 thousand, 
which if valued at £200 a head, which every able 
man and his posterity may be deemed to add to the 
value of the Kingdom at £10 a yr. per head at 
20 years’ purchase, comes to ... ... ... ... £120,000,000 

And the total loss is thus £560,000,000, or, from another point 
of view, this £440,000,000 at 5 per cent, interest would bring 
in an annual revenue of £22,000,000, “which is four or five 
times as much as the usual revenues of the Crown of France in 
time of peace.” And the 600,000 men lost are double or treble 
the number now under arms in France. And “where there are 
no men, there can be no money, nor women, nor children, nor 
kingdom, but a land without inhabitants.” The other kingdoms 
and countries of Europe engaged in the war have been impoverished 
in the same way, in proportion to their expenditure of men and 
money. Yet what result has been gained to compensate for all this 
outlay ? “ It would be much more glorious for a prince to build 

palaces, hospitals, bridges, and make rivers navigable, and to increase 
the number of his people, than by pouring out humane blood as 
water, to invade his neighbours.” 

This leads Bellers to his main proposal. At the next peace 
there should be established by universal guarantee an annual Congress 
of all the princes and States of Europe, in one federation, “ with 
a renouncing of all claims upon each other,” which should debate 
under acknowledged rules of an international law “ to prevent 



168 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 


any disputes that might otherwise raise a new war in this age or the 
ages to come ; by which every prince and State will have all the 
strength of Europe to protect them.” It would be to the interest 
of the Allies to begin the scheme among themselves, for Holland, 
Switzerland, and other instances show the advantages of federation. 
Bellers himself favours the plan of dividing Europe into a hundred 
or more equal cantons, of such a size that every Sovereign State 
shall send at least one member to the Congress. Each canton must 
raise an equal proportion of soldiers or a contribution in money 
or ships of the same value, and for every such contribution furnished 
by a State it shall have the right to send an additional member to 
the Senate or Congress. Like Penn, Bellers would include Russia 
and Turkey in the Federation, and in a later passage he censures 
Henry IV for shutting them out. “ The Muscovites are Christians, 
and the Mahometans men, and have the same faculties and reason 
as other men. They only want the same opportunities and applica¬ 
tions of their understandings to be the same men. But to beat their 
brains out, to put sense into them, is a great mistake, and would 
leave Europe too much in a state of war.” By this arrangement 
of representation in proportion to territory, the stronger States will 
be willing to enter the union, and yet “ the major part of the senate 
not being interested in the dispute, will be the more inclined to that 
side which hath most reason in it.” The limitation of armaments, 
too, will prevent the peace from degenerating into an armed truce, 
which would crush the peoples under new expenditure in addition 
to the vast charges of the debts incurred by the war. Even under 
this scheme there will be no compensation for the sufferings of the 
past. “ There can be no righting the people that have been ruined 
and destroyed by war, nor the princes they have belonged unto, 
and the longer the war continues, injuries will be the more increased. 
For war always ruins more people than it raiseth, and the rights 
of both princes and people are best preserved in peace. Therefore, 
the best expedient that can be offered, is such a settlement, as will 
prevent adding more injuries by war to those irreparable ones already 
past.” 

A third address follows, “to the Councillors and Ministers 
of State” of Europe, which contains some pungent home-truths. 
They are reminded that war “shakes, if not throws down those 
ministers that set at helm, for whether their management be defective 
or not, the people only cry them up or run them down by their 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN SELLERS 169 

success.” Bellers lays to their account the awful toll of death and 
bereavement during the previous nine years. “The princes of 
Europe,” he says, “ have seldon been more weary of war than 
at present, yet the impossibility of submission drives them on, until 
he that is nearest ruin must first ask for peace.” But Bellers longed 
for peace, not only in the political, but also in the religious world. 
The last address, to bishops, clergy, and religious teachers, is a plea 
for concord and tolerance. The disunion of the churches is a 
reproach to Christianity, and an insuperable obstacle to the conver¬ 
sion of the heathen. Yet in war the different sects are able to form 
alliances and to act in friendship, while science and learning know 
no barriers of race or creed. The English Royal Society, and the 
French Academy “ lament the obstruction that is given to their 
desired correspondence by the war.” Bellers’ views on freedom 
of thought can bear repetition even to-day. “ If a man but lives 
agreeable to the public peace, his error in opinion cannot hinder 
a better Christian from heaven. . . . Remove but the various 
passions that cloud men, and then truth will be discovered by its 
own light. Imposing religion without reaching the understanding 
is not leading men to heaven. Men will not be saved against 
their wills.” Hence, as a European Congress will harmonize the 
interests and desires of the several States, so let another Council 
of men of religion meet to discover a common basis of belief and 
morality among the several sects. 

Next anticipating the Abbe St. Pierre, 1 Bellers gives a short 
summary of the grand dessein y drawn from Sully’s Memoires. In 
his Conclusion he alludes to the “ small treatise ” of Penn on the 
same theme, giving (with unusual exactness for that age) the name 
of its publisher. This Conclusion summarizes the previous arguments 
against war, and one statement comes to the modern reader with 
fresh emphasis. “ War is destruction, and puts men (they think) 
under a necessity of doing those things, which in a time of peace 
they would account cruel and horrid.” Bellers ends with a finely 
expressed prayer to God to “ bless the Princes of Europe with the 
knowledge of Thyself . . . that the noise of war may be heard 
no more, and that Thy will may be done in earth as it is in heaven.” 

The only other Quaker writings of the eighteenth century 
calling for notice is a group of tracts published in 1746—7, 
which are of more interest as a symptom of the state of the Society 
* Un Projet de Paix Perpetuelle first appeared in 1713. 


170 THE GROUND OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY 

than for their intrinsic merits. The War of the Austrian Succession 
was dragging on its inglorious course and Charles Edward had seen 
his Highland army shattered, and had fled to France. The shock 
of war, as usual, caused heart-searching among Quakers ; for the 
first time a Friend was found bold enough to challenge the whole 
peace position in a public, though anonymous, pamphlet, “ The 
Nature and Duty of Self-Defence : Addressed to the people called 
Quakers, 1746.” 1 The writer, Richard Finch, a London merchant, 
dedicates his work to that “ illustrious hero,” William, Duke of 
Cumberland. His arguments are straightforward, and more ingenuous 
than some advanced in later days. “ Self-defence,” he says, “ is 
a natural right, and the Gospel ought not to abolish any of our 
natural privileges.” If the command to love enemies and to forgive 
injuries is to be obeyed literally, then all the Sermon on the Mount 
must be obeyed literally. This Finch evidently considers a reductio 
ad ahsurdum , and he explains that the command means “ to bear 
or pass by, as far as is possible or convenient , all sorts of injuries and 
abuses.” The soldier is merely an executioner, who takes away 
life for the public good. Finch evidently holds the view that the 
other side is always the aggressor, whether “ several thousands of 
armed villains should assemble together with full resolution to 
overturn that Government to which they ought to submit,” or a 
foreign enemy comes “ to disturb the quiet and repose of a people 
who give them no umbrage.” A man may rightly refuse, he admits, 
to fight in an unjust cause ; but if the land is invaded in retaliation 
for an unjust attack, he may then take up arms “notwithstanding 
the first false step.” 

It is odd to find a spirited defence of the conscientious nature 
of Quaker scruples included in the pamphlet. Finch tells the 
following story, whose conclusion cannot be traced in the records 
of the Society. “ There is now, while I am writing this, a particular 
case depending in London, viz. four soldiers, who were lately 
quartered at Bristol, have entered into the Society of the Quakers, 
refused to wear the King’s clothes, receive his pay, or bear arms. 
They are brought to London, to be tried, as I suppose, by a court- 
martial, where, if this change appears to be matter of conviction 
and sincerity, they will doubtless meet with the same favour the 
rest of their Friends enjoy.” 

Finch was answered in several pamphlets. Joseph Besse, com- 
1 In D. Tracts, 339, 12. 


TV 1 LLUM PENN JND JOHN SELLERS 171 

piler of the Sufferings , under the pseudonym of “ Irenicus,” edited 
Penington’s tract of the “Weighty Question.” 1 In his preface 
he reminds the reader that Christ calls His followers lambs and sheep. 
“ To imagine an army of sheep encountering the wolves, or two 
armies of lambs worrying and destroying one another, would be 
an absurdity in nature.” 

In another anonymous tract, “ A modest plea on behalf of the 
people called Quakers,” 2 3 the position taken up by Penington is re¬ 
emphasized. “ Our arguments are urged only in behalf of those 
who are brought in themsleves to the knowledge of this inward 
and peaceable principle, and refusing to fight with carnal weapons, 
have surrendered cheerfully their all into the hands and protection 
of the Almighty. The magistrates or any other person, not con¬ 
vinced of this to be their duty, may very fitly fight in defence of 
life, liberty, and property, and it is even possible, if not probable, 
that the outward sword thus drawn in a good cause has been secretly 
blessed and prospered by the Almighty and that such an army, formed 
on these principles, may have often been a bulwark and security 
to those whose tender consciences would not permit them to draw 
the carnal sword themselves.” The writer gives a recent and striking 
instance of the distinction between civil justice and war. The rebel 
Earl of Kilmarnock, he says, at his execution expressed gratitude 
that he had been given time for repentance, and had not fallen “ in 
the midst of his sins in the dreadful carnage at Culloden.” 

Another reply, also attributed to Besse, was published in 1747.3 
Its arguments cover familiar ground, and its chief contribution 
to the discussion is a renunciation of the right of self-defence. 
Finch, he says, “acknowledges that war is a very terrible and 
undesirable state ; but queries ‘ Would it not be more terrible to 
remain quiet and unopposing under the horrid murders, ravages, 
and devastation of execrable abandoned villains ? ’ I answer that 
in such a state the condition of the Patient is much to be preferred 
to that of the Agent; and suffering Innocence is far more desirable 
and less terrible than insulting Wickedness.” 

These replies were, of course, the work of private members 

1 In D. Tracts , 214, 3. “ The doctrine of the people called Quakers in relation 
to bearing arms and fighting, extracted from the works of a learned and 
approved writer of that persuasion—1746.” 

2 Ibid 204, ir. 

3 Ibid., 212. “ An Enquiry into the Validity of a late Discourse,” etc. 


172 THE GROUND OF THE RE ACE TESTIMONY 

of the Society. The most interesting feature of the controversy 
is that nine years later Finch himself published a recantation of his 
own pamphlet. 1 In it he carefully explained that neither for this 
nor for his earlier tract was the Society in any degree responsible, 
and he indignantly repudiates the libel that he was hired by the 
Quakers to retract his opinions. On the contrary, even when he 
wrote his first tract his mind was uneasy and he suspected his error. 
At that time he dallied with sceptical opinions in religious matters. 
“ But it pleased God . . . once more to draw me towards Himself, 
and afresh incline my mind to attend those religious assemblies 
where I had formerly enjoyed that satisfaction of mind, which I 
never so experienced in any other place of public worship ; which 
may be accounted for, when we consider that the truest method 
of waiting for divine strength and comfort is in this day too much 
derided as novelty and enthusiasm. . . . And I no sooner complied 
with the drawing aforementioned but I was favoured with a com¬ 
posure of mind to me unknown for a long season before : my book 
came fresh to remembrance, and the same which spread a solemnity 
over my mind seemed to indicate or at least it then appeared to me, 
that I should, or might, in due time as heartily retract as ever I wrote 
it, which I now do. And were I to set down all that hath since 
befel me, in the course of my experience, some might think it very 
strange, while others, more sober and considerate, would readily 
acknowledge a divine hand to have followed or led me along.” 
In his repentance he had published in a London newspaper a notice 
of his change of view, and gave voluntarily to the Society “ that 
satisfaction which is due from her members, who have flagrantly 
and publicly deviated from a fundamental doctrine.” 

Nevertheless he considered that some of his critics had been 
unfair, and he replied to them at length. He had evidently been 
much influenced by Isaac Penington, and was still willing to 
consider war for some men necessary and even honourable, though 
he admitted a clear distinction between it and civil justice. His 
indignant description of the sufferings of the ordinary soldier reaches 
back to Barclay and forward to Carlyle. 2 

* Second Thoughts concerning War, wherein that great subject is candidly 
considered, and set in a new light in answer to and by the author of a late pamphlet, 
entitled “ The Nature and Duty of Self-Defence, addressed to the People called 
Quakers” (Job xlii. 3, 5, 6 j Nottingham, 1755. In D. Tracts). 

* Vide ante , p. 149, and Carlyle, Sartor Resartus. 


WILLIAM PENN AND JOHN BELLERS 173 

“ For in war the innocent and the guilty not only perish 
promiscuously ; but war drags the innocent from all quarters to 
butcher each other in the open field ; leaving their families to great 
distress, or to pine away their days in hunger and sorrow ; bereaved 
of their natural support, the industry of the husband or the parent. 
Wherefore, I think, that such as have faith enough, had better 
under all risks, commit themselves, soul and body and all that is 
theirs, to Providence, rather than be active in such dismal scenes. 
For men forced from the plough and the spade, from mechanics, 
husbandry, and their families, and pushed on by the pike or by 
arbitrary power to fight, kill, and destroy such as they have no quarrel 
with or enmity against, may surely be deemed innocent in com¬ 
parison of the obdurate villain, the midnight ruffian, and murderer ; 
and yet so far nocent, too, that they may be laudably withstood 
by such as see no farther than they do (or not to the end of war) 
being by arbitrary power or the custom or law of their country 
compelled to draw the sword. I do not therefore compare the mutual 
slaughter of these to downright murder, and yet the destruction of 
these people in war (whose condition is much to be pitied) by the 
hands of such as believe themselves redeemed from all war, would 
too much resemble that black crime.” 




PART III 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


A dry doctrinal ministry, however sound in words, can reach but the ear, 
and is but a dream at the best. There is another soundness, that is soundest 
of all, viz. Christ the power of God. . . . Therefore, I say, for you 
to fall flat and formal and continue the profession, without that salt and 
savour by which it is come to obtain a good report among men, is not to 
answer God’s love, nor your parents’ care, nor the mind of truth in your¬ 
selves, nor in those that are without; who, though they will not obey the 
truth, have sight and sense enough to see if they do, that make a profession 
of it.— William Penn, 1694. 


CHAPTER VII 

DAYS OF TRADITION 

1702-55 

The first half of the eighteenth century is not a period to which 
any religious body in England can look back with satisfaction. In 
spite o t much fervent individual piety the general level of spiritual 
life was low. The Established Church was chiefly concerned to 
maintain her privileges and revenues, the Dissenters feared that by 
any undue activity they might forfeit the toleration they had hardly 
won, and the Roman Catholics were fortunate if they could practise 
their faith by stealth and under risk of harsh penalties. 

The Society of Friends did not escape the deadening influence 
of the time. The leaders of the early period had passed or were 
passing away. The business integrity of Friends had brought a 
temporal reward, and the new generation included many wealthy 
or well-to-do men, merchants, bankers, and retail traders. They 
felt a genuine gratitude to the rulers who had relieved them from 
persecution, and an equally genuine abhorrence of rebels and rioters 
who disturbed both their spiritual and material well-being. They 
were faithful to the traditional “testimonies,” but they were not 
of the stuff of the martyrs. Most fatal change of all, they tended 
to think their Society as merely a sect among other sects. It is perhaps 
not fanciful to consider that the decline in the spiritual power of the 
Quakers coincides with their willingness to adopt the official descrip¬ 
tion of “ Protestant Dissenters.” Certainly the beginnings of a 
revived influence coincide both in England and America with the 
test of war and the first organized movements against slavery. There 
were, of course, in the earlier eighteenth century, still Friends of 
the primitive type, unworldly, selfless, and courageous, but the official 
standpoint was one of caution. A trivial instance shows the tendency, 
when Anne was scarcely settled on the throne. 

12 


177 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


178 

In December 1702 the Meeting for Sufferings had before it 
“a letter from John Love to William Warren,” with a paper of 
rhymes that he published at Canterbury relating to war and blood¬ 
shed among professors of Christianity ; which Friends judge to 
be very unsafe, and that he ought to have shown it to Friends there 
before published. Also (he) sends a copy of his commitment by the 
Mayor of Canterbury for the same. . . . It’s referred to the Corre¬ 
spondents to write to him to endeavour to be quiet and still, and 
have a care how he brings an exercise upon himself and Friends, 
and therefore that he endeavour to get in his paper from the 
magistrates again, Friends esteeming it not fit for them nor Govern¬ 
ment.” 

In justice to the Meeting, it must be said that its members showed 
more sympathy and less fear of “ Government ” in the many cases 
of Quakers pressed for the Navy who appealed to them for deliver¬ 
ance. The experiences of Thomas Chalkley show what a menace 
hung over the ports and trading-ships in time of war. In 1694, 
as a boy of nineteen, he was seized near his Southwark home, brought 
on board ship and thrown into the hold, where his physical discomfort 
was overshadowed by his moral shrinking from the “ dark and 
hellish ” conversation of his fellow prisoners. When the longed-for 
morning came and they were brought on deck, the lieutenant asked 
him whether he would serve the King. “ I answered that I was 
willing to serve him in my business, and according to my conscience ; 
but as for war or fighting, Christ had forbid it in His excellent Sermon 
on the Mount ; and for that reason I could not bear arms, nor 
be instrumental to destroy or kill men. Then the lieutenant looked 
on me and on the people and said, ‘ Gentlemen, what shall we do 
with this fellow ? He swears he will not fight.’ The Commander 
of the vessel made answer, ‘ No, no, he will neither swear nor 
fight.’ Upon which they turned me on shore.” 1 In 1701 Chalkley 
emigrated to Pennsylvania. There he became a leading minister 
among Friends, and made many journeys “ in the cause of Truth ” 
on the American Continent, to the West Indies, and to England. 
The quaint and charming pages of his Journal note as ordinary 
incidents of travel the attacks of privateers on the high seas and 
the raids of the press-gang in home waters. In 1719 the ship in 
which he was returning to the West Indies was stopped and boarded 
in the English Channel, and the best of the crew carried off to a 
1 Chalkley, Journal, p. 7. 


DAYS OF TRADITION 


179 


man-of-war. Again, in 1735 ? he as merchant and shipowner was 
himself bringing a cargo from Philadelphia by the West Indies 
to England. It was a time “ of very great pressing for seamen ” 
(when fears of French and Spanish designs were at their height), 
and some of Chalkley’s crew hid themsleves as they approached 
England. When the press-gang boarded the ship, the lieutenant 
asked for the missing men, and Chalkley tried some very elementary 
diplomacy. “ I made him very little answer ; he then said he was 
sure I could not bring the ship from Barbadoes without hands. I 
told him sailors were hard to be got in Barbadoes, either for love 
or money, to go to London, for fear of being pressed, and I was 
obliged to take any I could get. He said it was in vain to talk much, 
but if I would say I had no more hands on board he would be 
satisfied (he having a belief that I would speak the truth, though 
he never saw me before). . . . But I made him no answer, not 
daring to tell a lie. ‘ Now I know that there is men on board,’ 
said he. So he commanded his men to search the ship to her keel. 
So they stripped, and made a narrow search and sweated and fretted, 
but could not find them. He being civil, I made him when he went 
away a small present. He wished me well, and so I carried my 
people safe up to London.” 1 

Some of Chalkley’s experiences with privateers will be told 
in the account of West Indian Quakerism, but the North Sea and 
the Channel were as dangerous to quiet voyagers. The adventures 
of William Hornould on his return from a religious visit to Holland 
so impressed the Yearly Meeting of 1706 that a full account was 
entered in the minutes. The little lugger or fishing boat, in which 
Hornould was a passenger, had hardly left the Dutch shore when 
a privateer was sighted, but the English boat had the wind in her 
favour and was able to draw away. Next, two more sails appeared, 
but they proved to be “ great ships, supposed to be Deans, and then 
it took off the fears of the people.” The boat sailed well, and was 
but eight leagues from Harwich when three French privateers 
were seen ahead “ making all the sail they could, both top and top¬ 
gallant sails, bearing down upon us, which put the people into a 
great consternation, and caused the commander and the master 
to change their course from west nor’-west to full west. . . . And 
there fell a dead calm, which put the people still into a greater conster¬ 
nation than before.” 


* Chalkley, Journal , pp. 100, 277. 


i8o THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

“ But,” continued Hornould, “ it was with me then, and also 
in the danger before, to encourage them all, and to desire them 
not to be afraid, for I did believe and was fully satisfied that they 
should not come near us to do us any hurt, but that we should go 
very safe to Harwich. And then it came into my mind to say to 
them, “ Have you no oars ? ” and they answered “ Yes.” “ Then 
now,” I said, “ is the time to use them.” Whereupon they hoisted 
them all out presently, and rowed (for all the men cried out they 
would all work that were able to work), and we rowed four men 
at an oar for the space of two hours, and then night came on and 
we had gained a great deal of them.” Then a favourable wind sprang 
up which brought them to Harwich at dawn of the fourth day of the 
voyage. “ After that we had fully escaped and their fright was over, 
they were exceeding loving to me, and I had a good time to open 
something of the principles of truth to them that we held. But 
some of them did for a time argue against our principles, but in 
a little time were overcome and said it would be a very good time if 
ever it should come to it, for all so to love one another that nobody 
would seek to injure or wrong one another, for then there would 
be no fear of privateers. Some of them answered again and said they 
were afraid that it would never come to that. But I told them I 
did not question it at all, but that the Lord would bring such a day 
and time over the world, according to the testimony of holy Scripture 
to look for such a day and time, and so in this testimony I left 
them.” 

Another stalwart for peace was Thomas Story, a Quaker preacher, 
whose message and comforting presence was welcomed by many 
scattered congregations of Friends in English villages, American 
backwoods, West Indian plantations, and Dutch or German cities. 
He was as great a traveller as Chalkley, but a man of more education 
and intellectual power. As a youth, even before he joined the Society 
in 1691, amid the turmoil of the “glorious revolution,” he was 
moved to pour out his soul in “ Spiritual Songs,” fervent strophes 
of rhythmic prose, whose striking beauty contrasts with the homely 
and ill-framed sentences in which other Friends struggled to express 
their message. The atmosphere of war and political strife lay heavily 
on him and he heard his Master reproach His erring children. 
“ Instead of the Sceptre of Peace they have laid hold on War, and 
despised the words of my kingdom. ... I commanded them to 
love, but behold they hated ; to forgive each other, but they hatched 


DATS OF TRADITION 181 

Revenge. ... I told them that my Gospel was Truth and Peace ; 
but behold they have chosen War and a Lie.” 

Story never wavered in this position, and upheld it in strange 
scenes and before men of all conditions. In the year 1718, with another 
Quaker, Dr. Heathcote, the Earl’s physician, he had, by request a 
long interview with the Earl of Carlisle concerning the Quaker 
faith. 1 After some discussion the earl said : “ I think you want 
but one thing to make you a very complete people ; that is, to bear 
arms. Pray, what would have become of this whole nation t’other 
day when the Spaniards were coming to invade us, if we had all, 
or greatest part, been of your religion ? No doubt we should all 
have been destroyed or enslaved.” 

Story made a long reply, in which he told the Earl that “ the 
kingdom of Christ is not of this world, neither is it national, but 
spiritual. And it cannot be supposed that any one nation can ever 
be the Church of Christ, which is not national and so subjected 
to the violence of any other nation.” But God has ordained govern¬ 
ment and entrusted power to rulers. “ And the temporal sword, 
as well of civil magistracy as military force, being in the hands of 
Kings and rulers, to exercise as need shall be, they, and not the 
disciples of Christ, must apply and administer accordingly, till by 
degrees the kingdom of Christ, the Prince of divine Peace, have the 
ascendant, over all kingdoms, not by violence, for His servants can 
offer none. “ Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith 
the Lord.” It will not be by human force or policy, but by convic¬ 
tion, not by violence, but consent, that “ the kingdoms of this world 
will become the kingdoms of God and of his Christ.” Nor will the 
kingdoms and powers in this world ever cease (being God’s ordinance 
in natural and civil affairs) till the reason of them cease ; that is, 
till all violence and injustice cease, and evil-doing come to an end.” 
“ So that ” (Story continued) “ this nation is not in danger of the 
Spaniards or of any other nation, by reason of our principle, or for 
want of our help in fighting, which we have not declined because 
we durst not, or could not use the weapons of war. For many of us 
have been fighters, and I myself have worn a sword and knew very 
well how to use it. But being convinced of the evil, by the Spirit 
of the Lord Jesus, working in us in conformity to the will of God, 
and subjecting us to Himself as subjects of His peaceable kingdom, 
’tis neither cowardice in ourselves or rebellion or disloyalty in nations, 

1 Story, Life , pp. 617-23. 


182 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 

but conscience towards God, and obedience to His dear Son, the 
Prince of Peace, our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, which makes 
us decline fighting.” 

Such a discourse must have sounded strange in the Earl s ears, 
and in his reply he grasped with relief at some evident and material 
facts. “’Tis true, so long as you do behave peaceably, are loyal 
to the Government, and pay your taxes, as you do, I think; when 
all’s done, there is not an absolute necessity for your personal service 
in War, since his Majesty may always have soldiers enough for 
money, as he may have occasion.” 

Story, however, brought him back to first principles. “ Without 
all doubt, Volunteers, of all others, are fittest for that service, where 
no man jeopards his life, but by his own consent, choice, and inclina¬ 
tion, and has no man to blame but himself in the consequences of it, 
with respect either to body or soul, since both may be in hazard. 

All Friends, however, were not as staunch. Apart from those 
who were tempted by commercial interest or actual danger to 
compromise their peace principles, there were by this time some 
members whose adherence to the Society was rather a matter of 
hereditary attachment than conviction. The introduction of “ birth¬ 
right membership,” natural and almost inevitable as such a step 
was meant that many acknowledged Friends had not yet fully grasped 
all the implications of the Society’s teaching. 1 On the theological 
side (although heresy hunts were still infrequent) some Friends 
of this period were more than suspected of Deism, or even scepticism, 
and others held but a wavering testimony against war. Amongst 
these, perhaps, was Dr. Johnson’s friend, “ Tom Cumming,” 
who is mentioned several times in Boswell’s Life. In 1783 the 
Doctor told Boswell that “in 1745 my friend Tom Cumming 
the Quaker said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammuni¬ 
tion cart.” But Thomas Cumming strayed farther from the paths 
of peace than by a mere hasty expression. In the Gentleman's 
Magazine, June 1774, is his obituary notice, “At Tottenham, 
Mr. Thomas Cumming. He formed the plan for taking Senegal 
and Goree in the late war.” The story is told at length in Smollett’s 
continuation of Hume’s History under the year 1758. The French 

1 In 1737 a difficulty in regard to the relief of poor members of the Society 
led to a minute of Yearly Meeting by which, incidentally the wife and children 
of a Friend were “ deemed members of the Monthly Meeting of which the husband 
or father is a member,” not only during his life, but after his decease. 


DATS OF TRADITION 183 

possessed important trading settlements on the West Coast of Africa, 
at the mouths of the rivers Gambia and Senegal and had also fortified 
the island of Goree. They thus had a monopoly of the valuable 
gum-senega, which English merchants could only buy at an exorbitant 
price through the medium of Dutch merchants. Hence, as Smollett 
says naively, “ this consideration forwarded the plans for annexing 
the country to the possession of Great Britain.” Even before the 
outbreak of the Seven Years War, Cumming, a “sensible Quaker,” 
seems to have entertained the project. He was a London merchant 
and had himself made a voyage to Africa, where he met a chief 
“extremely well disposed” to the English. Smollett continues : 
“ Mr. Cumming not only perceived the advantages that would 
result from such an exclusive privilege with regard to the gum, but 
foresaw many other important consequences of an extensive trade 
in a country which, over and above the gum-senega, contains many 
valuable articles, such as gold dust, elephant’s teeth, hides, cotton, 
bees-wax, slaves, ostrich feathers, indigo, ambergris and civet. 
Elevated with the prospect of an acquisition so valuable to his country, 
this honest Quaker was equally minute and indefatigable in his 
inquiries touching the commerce of the coast, as well as the strength 
and situation of the French settlements.” On his return home 
he pressed the scheme upon the Government, but it was not put 
into execution until the year 1758. A force was sent against Senegal, 
and a later expedition under Keppel bombarded and captured Goree. 
According to Smollett, Cumming declared to the Ministry that 
his scheme could be carried out without bloodshed, and it is implied 
that this was actually the case. In fact, whether he really hoped 
for a pacific conquest or not, the operations were those of ordinary 
warfare, and his plans of a British trade monopoly were also doomed 
to disappointment. The island and coast were handed back to France 
at the Peace of Paris in 1763. The tantalising part of this odd story 
is the obscurity in which the later history of Cumming is wrapped. 
The Dictionary of National Biography says that he explained his 
action to the Society of Friends, took the entire responsibility, and 
was not disowned, but as Smollett’s account is the main source of 
the article these statements seem to be a mis-reading of the passage 
referred to above which gives his statements to the “ Ministry.” 
It would almost seem as if the writer had supposed this term to refer 
not to the English Government, but to the Society of Friends. The 
only contemporary fact about Cumming in the records of the Society 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


184 

is to be found in the London Burial Register, as follows : “ Thomas 
Cumming, died 1774, 5 mon. 29. Age 59, residence Tottenham. 
Died of Dropsy. Monthly Meeting Gracechurch Street. Buried 
1774. 6th month 2 at Bunhill Fields. Non-Member.” From this 
it is clear that he was not a Friend at his death, and no Birth Register 
of the Society for the years 1714—15 contains his name. Nor does 
it occur in the numerous lists of representatives, committees, and 
signatories of official documents in the records of Yearly Meeting 
and the Meeting for Sufferings during the period covered by his 
life. The minutes of Tottenham Monthly Meeting, within the 
area of which his death took place, also make no mention of him. 
Those of Gracechurch Street were destroyed by fire in 1821 ; but 
it is probable that the reference to this Monthly Meeting in the 
Register merely means that Cumming’s place of business was in that 
London district. If he resided there in earlier life, it would be the 
duty of Gracechurch Street Meeting to deal with this conduct. But 
the foregoing facts suggest the possibility that he was never an 
acknowledged member of the Society, although he may have been 
an adherent. 

Turning from these instances of the views held by individual 
Friends, the question of the official attitude of the Society next 
claims consideration. It may be said with fair accuracy that this 
was expressed each year in the proceedings of Yearly Meeting, which 
in particular took note of delinquencies within the Society, while 
in the intervening months the Meeting for Sufferings guarded 
against persecution and misunderstanding from without. 

From the establishment of the Yearly Meeting this body had 
requested the local meetings to keep and report “ an exact account ” 
of the spiritual and material state of the Society in their district. 
In the year 1682 the following three queries were framed to be 
answered annually by all Quarterly Meetings : 

“ 1. What Friends in the Ministry in their respective Counties 
departed this life since the last Yearly Meeting ? 

“2. What Friends, imprisoned for their testimony, have died 
since last Yearly Meeting ? 

“ 3. How the Truth has prospered among them since the last 
Yearly Meeting, and how Friends are in peace and unity.” 

Various alterations and additions were made to these queries 
during the next half-century ; the replies from the several meetings 
were regularly read in the Yearly Meeting, and after the year 1705 


DATS OF TRADITION 185 

their substance entered upon its minutes. It is not until the year 1742 
that a specific allusion to warlike activities was included among the 
queries, for, as has been explained, throughout this period in most 
parts of the country Friends endured little suffering on this account. 
The militia was only embodied twice, in the dangerous years of 1715 
and 1745, and, with the exception of the latter year, between 1715 
and 1757 no Votes for the Militia were presented to Parliament. 
In 1705 Kent Quarterly Meeting returned sufferings “for not 
bearing arms” to the amount of £17, and between that year and 
1718 London returned varying amounts for “Trained Bands.” 
A more frequent form of “suffering” is recalled by the Yearly 
Meeting’s appointment in 1706 of a small committee (including 
Milton’s friend, Thomas Ellwood) to read the “ Act for pressing 
of men or better recruiting the army for one year,” and the “ Act 
for manning the fleet,” and to take Counsel’s opinion on them, 
in case any Friends should be impressed . 1 

In this and the following year the Meeting for Sufferings had 
actually to obtain the discharge of Friends pressed into both services. 
This time of war led the Yearly Meeting to repeat in the Epistle 
of 1709 the warning of 1693 a g a inst arming ships. After the Peace 
of Utrecht, the Meeting (maintaining the recognized Quaker 
privilege of personal access to the sovereign) presented a congratula¬ 
tory address on the establishment of “ so long desired a peace.” 
This was delivered to the Queen on June 4, 1713, and “kindly 
received.” In 1715 Friends in the north were in the track of the 
Jacobite rising, and the next year’s Meeting received their reports. 
A Scottish Friend declared that “Friends in that kingdom did 
and do undoubtedly account the late rising and tumults against 
the Government was rebellion and that they have cause to bless 
the Lord for the defeating and disappointing of the evil purpose 
therein intended.” In Lancashire, “ Friends in general have behaved 
themselves inoffensively,” while in Cheshire their quiet behaviour 
“ gained them love and respect even from the very soldiers.” The 
Meeting itself presented George I with an address upon the over¬ 
throw of the “ Black Conspiracy.” But, in common with other 
Dissenters, Quakers suffered from the attacks of disappointed Tory 
mobs. At Oxford damage to the amount of £55 was done to the 

1 Four manuscript “ Books of Cases ” preserved in D. contain, amongst 
other matters, many such opinions by leading lawyers, chiefly on questions of 
tithes or militia, from the reign of Charles II up to modern times. 


186 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

meeting-house and Widow Fletcher’s house adjoining. Widow 
Fletcher herself appeared before the Meeting for Sufferings on 
May 18th to tell how “ the soldiers and Oxford scholars have been 
very abusive in Friends’ Meetings,” and Andrew Pitt (Voltaire’s 
Quaker friend) was deputed to approach the Secretary of War. 
A fortnight later he reported that a new Colonel was in charge 
of the Oxford troops, and would “prevent these abuses.” 1 

In 1727 the Meeting presented George II on his accession 
with an address couched in the florid and adulatory style of the 
period. Little mark of its origin appears beyond the Quaker “ thee ” 
and “ thou,” and a wish that the new King may “ compose the 
differences of Europe and avert the threatened War.” Three years 
later, at a time when war was raging on the Continent, although 
Walpole firmly refused to imbroil England in the conflict, the Yearly 
Meeting made an emphatic declaration in its Epistle. 

“It hath been a weighty concern on this meeting that our ancient 
and honourable testimony against Friends being concerned in bearing 
arms or fighting may be maintained ; it being a doctrine and testimony 
agreeable to the nature and design of the Christian religion, and 
to the universal love and grace of God. This testimony, we desire, 
may be strictly and carefully maintained by a godly care and concern 
in all to stand single and clear therein ; so shall we strengthen and 
comfort one another.” In 1742 the stress and strain of the European 
situation is reflected in the Epistle. “The judgments of the Lord 
are in the earth ” : famine and the sword devour multitudes. Let 
Friends implore the Almighty to restore peace, and demean them¬ 
selves as followers of Him who commanded men to love their enemies. 
The meeting appointed this year a Committee to revise and re¬ 
draft the queries. This Committee increased them to eleven, of 
which the eighth read as follows : — 

“ Do you bear a faithful and Christian testimony against the 
receiving or paying tithes ? And against bearing arms ? And do 
you admonish such as are unfaithful therein ? ” Year by year answers 
to these queries were sent by Monthly Meetings to Quarterly 

1 In 1739 a Guy Fawkes Day celebration at Timahoe, Kildare, for which 
Friends were unjustly held responsible, led to a serious riot in which the Meeting¬ 
house was burnt. Dublin Friends applied to the Duke of Devonshire, Lord- 
Lieutenant, and parties of soldiers were sent down to Timahoe to protect them. 
Yet in 1743 at Limerick, Waterford, and Clonmel, and again in 1746-7 at Cork 
a “ rude mob of soldiers and others ” enjoyed themselves in breaking Friends’ 
windows, on nights of illumination for victories (Rutty, History , p. 369). 


DAYS OF TRADITION 


187 

Meetings ; each of these in turn answered them on behalf of the 
Monthly Meetings within its compass, and the answers were 
considered at the Yearly Meeting. 

The summaries of replies to the eighth query entered on the 
minutes give a clue at any rate to the position in various localities, 
though obviously some meetings possessed a more tender corporate 
conscience than others. In 1743 for the most part they declared 
that Friends were “ clear ” in the matter of bearing arms, or, perhaps 
more honestly, “ we are not tried ” (Gloucester), or “ we have no 
militia raised ” (Norfolk). Next year there was less complacency. 
London feared “ all are not duly careful,’’ and Derby said quaintly 
“ there be several among us who are the reverse in their conduct 
to the account above, notwithstanding the repeated admonitions 
received on account of their unfaithfulness.” 

From Bristol came a definite appeal :— 

“ We sorrowfully acknowledge to you that some under our 
profession are concerned in fitting out a privateer or privateers, 
and tho’ we have seen it our duty to admonish such against a practice 
so inconsistent with the peaceable doctrines of Christ, yet, as we 
fear this case may not be singly confined to us, and is of such 
consequence to Society, we submit it to your consideration to give 
such further advice as in the love and wisdom of truth you may see 
expedient.” 

The Yearly Meeting responded by a cautionary minute sent 
down for the consideration of the local meetings. The Quaker 
position, it says, is “agreeable to the doctrine of our blessed Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Apostles, to which our ancient 
Friends abundantly bore testimony, both in doctrine and practice, 
and suffered deeply for.” The arming of ships, whether for offence 
or defence, was expressly condemned by the Yearly Meeting in 
1693, 1709, and 1730, and Friends are “ under many strong engage¬ 
ments to observe the same, from the particular care of Providence 
over such as have been faithful to this our testimony, particularly 
those of our Friends in Pennsylvania.” Those professing Friends 
concerned in armed ships, letters of marque or privateers have 
committed “ a flagrant and lamentable departure from our peaceable 
principle which hath always been to confide in the protection and 
providence of Almighty God and not in weapons of war ; which 
practice of theirs may be attended with injustice, barbarity, and 
bloodshed.” “This Meeting therefore” (the minute concludes) 


188 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


“ having taken this sorrowful and afflicting case and breach of our 
ancient testimony into our serious consideration, have thought it 
our incumbent duty to bear our testimony against such practices, 
and ’tis the unanimous sense of this Meeting that all Quarterly 
and Monthly Meetings ought speedily to deal with every person 
found in the practice of such things, in the spirit of truth and love, 
in order to bring them to a sense of their error, and to reclaim them 
from it, which if they cannot do, to testify against them and let 
them know we have no unity or fellowship with them.” 

This was a clear lead to the subordinate meetings to set their 
affairs in order, and in 1745 Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting in 
answering the eighth query, acknowledged that “ in one or two 
maritime places something disagreeable hath appeared, whereunto 
suitable advice hath been given.” Thus began the long “ dealing ” 
with Whitby and Scarborough shipowners which disturbed the 
peace of the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings concerned for the 
next half-century. The Jacobite Rising of 1745 proved a time 
of trial in which not all Friends were able to walk consistently. 
Charles landed in Scotland in July, and on the 20th of September 
the Meeting for Sufferings took into “ serious consideration the 
present Rebellion in North Britian and the many obligations we 
lie under of allegiance and fidelity to the King and Government,” 
and accordingly sent out an address of warning to Friends. In 
October they were besieged with letters from country meetings, 
asking advice concerning the “ associations and voluntary subscrip¬ 
tions towards assisting in the great charge occasioned by this present 
Rebellion.” The small committee appointed to consider the question 
decided that “ consistent with our ancient Christian testimony and 
known practice ” the Society could take no part in these arrange¬ 
ments. 1 “ As we are conscious of our firm regard and affection 
to our rightful sovereign King George and sensible of the obligations 
we are under of fidelity and cheerful submission to his mild and 
just government, so we do trust that our principle against bearing 
arms is so well known that our not joining in such associations of 
subscriptions will be attributed to no other cause than a conscientious 
adherence to our Christian belief and persuasion.” 

1 Yet, with the consent of Friends of that Monthly Meeting, Devonshire House 
Meeting-house (now the headquarters of the Society) was taken for soldiers’ 
billets. Much damage was done during the occupation for which the meeting 
was never repaid (vide W. Beck and Ball, London Friends' Meetings , 
pp. 169-70). 


DATS OF TRADITION 189 

But the replies from the northern counties to the Yearly Meeting 
of 1746 showed that in the actual seat of war there had been 
delinquencies or weakness among Friends. In Cumberland, the 
first time for many years, Trophy Money had been levied, “and 
the same in collecting being mixt with other taxes, could not well 
separate so innocently paid, ... it being a critical conjecture 
in the county at that time.” This last reason casts some doubt on 
the absolute “ innocence ” of the payment. 

In Lancashire “many Friends have been taxed towards the 
maintenance of the militia and have paid the same,” and in West¬ 
morland “many of our Friends have paid Trophy Money, and 
some going under our name have not stood clear of bearing arms.” 
The Quaker gift to the Army, however, which at the time created 
considerable interest, was apparently not made in any official way, 
as no trace of it can be found in the records. The Gentleman's 
Magaziney in a list of many subscriptions to buy necessities for the 
army, stated “ the Quakers sent down ten thousand woollen waist¬ 
coats to keep them warm.” Longstaffe’s History of Darlington says 
that a large proportion of these garments were furnished by Friends 
in Darlington and the neighbourhood in four or five days, at their 
own expense. 

According to James Ray of Whitehaven, a volunteer who wrote 
a personal account of the campaign, the Duke of Cumberland’s 
army received the gift when encamped at Meriden near Coventry, 
on December 6th, the day the Highland army withdrew from 
Derby. 1 

Ray says of the Quakers that they are “ a quiet, peaceable people 
that don’t swear and fight for the King as we do,” and after some 
exemplary remarks on the folly of profanity, he continues : “ it is 
contrary to their principle to bear arms, yet they contribute to them 
that do, in paying the regular taxes due to the Government. I have 
not met with any . . . but what were zealous friends to the 
Government.” He also quotes some jingling couplets extemporized 
by a soldier (probably himself) praising the “Friendly Waistcoats” 
and promising to 

Exert my utmost art, my utmost might 

And fight for those whose creed forbids to fight. 

* Vide Gentleman's Magazine , 1745, p. 514 5 Boswell, Life of Johnson, 1783 ; 
J. J. Green, Souvenir of Address to King Edward VII, p. 75 ; and Ray, Compleat 
History of the Rebellion, quoted by Hicks, Quakeriana, March 1894, p. 7. 


190 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


Some Friends were very vigorous in their loyalty. Luke Hinde, 
the Quaker printer and bookseller in 1746, published a pamphlet 
entitled “ A summary account of the marches, behaviour, and 
plunders of the rebels, from the time of their coming into England, 
to the retaking of Carlisle by the King’s forces, under the command 
of the Duke of Cumberland. By an Eye-witness of many of the 
facts herein related.” Most of the stories refer to the neighbourhood 
of Carlisle, and the eye-witness was probably the Quaker Thomas 
Savage of Clifton, near Carlisle, although he discreetly veils his name. 
On the night of December 18th the Jacobites had planned an ambush 
for the Duke of Cumberland’s army near Clifton. “ As it pleased 
God T — s S — ge (a friend who lived in Clifton), hearing of their 
base and treacherous designs, and being very uneasy how he might 
give the Duke intelligence thereof, his son, with hearty goodwill 
(though with the hazard of his life) went privately out of his father’s 
house,” and succeeded in warning the English army. A skirmish 
followed, in which seventy prisoners were taken, but the main body 
escaped into Scotland, leaving a small garrison in Carlisle, which 
surrendered on December 30th. The Duke of Cumberland, the 
Duke of Richmond, and the Duke of Kingston quartered them¬ 
selves in Savage’s house, and the Quaker was filled with enthusiasm 
for his royal and noble guests. In this, indeed, he was not singular, 
for the Yearly Meeting of May 1746 presented to George II a 
congratulatory address signed by two hundred and eighty-six Friends, 
which far outdid even the rhetoric of 1727. It is hard to believe 
that the same body which sent out the emphatic warning to its 
members two years before was so dazzled by the Hanoverian throne 
as to pen the following phrases :— 

“We humbly beg leave to approach thy Royal Presence, with 
united hearts, to congratulate thee upon the deliverance of these 
kingdoms from the late impending dangers with a joy as sincere 
as the occasion is signal. We beheld with grief and detestation an 
ungrateful and deluded people combined against thy person and 
government, wickedly attempting to subject a free people to the 
miseries of a Popish and Arbitrary power. 

“ As none among all thy Protestant subjects exceed us in an 
aversion to the tyranny, idolatry, and superstition of the Church 
of Rome, so none lie under more just apprehension of immediate 
danger from the destructive consequence, or have greater cause 
to be thankful to the Almighty for the interposition of his providence 


DATS OF TRADITION 191 

in our preservation. A preservation so remarkable makes it our 
indispensable duty also to acknowledge the King’s paternal care 
for the safety of his people, of which he hath given the most assured 
pledge in permitting one of his Royal Offspring to expose himself 
to the greatest of dangers for their security. 

“ May we, and all thy faithful subjects, demonstrate the sincerity 
of our gratitude for this signal instance of the divine favour, by the 
deepest humiliation and by turning every one of us from the evil 
of our ways. ... We earnestly beseech him, by whom Kings 
reign and Princes decree justice, that his providence may ever attend 
thy Royal Person and Family, and make even the efforts of thine 
enemies conducive to the establishment of thy throne in perfect 
peace, give success to thy endeavours for settling the general tran¬ 
quillity of Europe on a lasting foundation, and grant that an unin¬ 
terrupted race of Kings of thy Royal Progeny may perpetuate the 
blessings of thy reign to our posterity.” 

It is obvious that prosperous Friends, in common with other 
members of the wealthy middle class, had been badly frightened 
on that Black Friday when the invaders reached Derby and the 
Bank of England only averted a disastrous run by paying out in 
sixpences. But Cumberland, the “ Royal Offspring,” was at this 
time still a popular hero. The House of Commons had voted him 
an annuity of £25,000 and City guilds were busy enrolling him 
as their freeman. “ As the news of the cruelties committed in 
Scotland filtered through to the public, a reaction of opinion mani¬ 
fested itself. When in July it was proposed to make him free of 
one of the City Companies an Alderman said aloud : ‘ Then let 
it be of the Butchers,’ and ‘ Billy the Butcher ’ was the nickname 
by which he was thenceforth known.” 1 

A more characteristic activity of this Yearly Meeting was the 
arrangement for a general collection to relieve the losses sustained 
by Friends in the North and Midlands “in the late rebellion.” 
The distribution of the fund was undertaken by the Meeting for 
Sufferings. 

In 1748, the long European war was brought to a close by the 
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The Yearly Meeting Epistle welcomed 
“ with joy ” the prospect of peace, and the Meeting for Sufferings, 
or rather some of its more ardent members, undertook a piece of 
propaganda. The translation of Barclay’s Apology into various 
1 Political History of England , ix. 407. 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


192 

languages and its circulation at home and abroad, had often engaged 
the attention of the leaders of the Society. Now, on the suggestion 
of Simeon Warner, it was proposed to follow Barclay’s own example 
at the time of the Treaty of Nimeguen, and to send copies of the 
Apology to the plenipotentiaries at Aix-la-Chapelle. 1 The proposal 
was accepted, and a few Friends, amongst them David Barclay, 
the Apologist’s son, were appointed to carry it into effect. 

In August a letter they had drafted in English and Latin to 
accompany the books was approved and signed, and the consignment 
dispatched to a Dutch Friend, Jan Van der Werf, for personal 
delivery to the Ambassadors. The minutes of the Meeting for 
Sufferings and an abstract in the Book of Cases of the correspon¬ 
dence with Van der Werf give a clear picture of this interesting 
episode. Seventy-four Apologies were sent in Spanish, Latin, French, 
English, Danish, and High Dutch, and the worthy Dutch Friend 
was asked to take an “ Intelligent Person ” with him to assist in 
the distribution. The Memorial to the Ambassadors told those 
dignitaries that nearly a century before the people called Quakers 
had been raised up to publish to the world, “amongst other gospel 
truths ... the inconsistency of wars and fighting with the example 
and precepts of Christ and the doctrine of his followers.” They 
are constrained “ in love to the whole race of mankind, to promote 
the knowledge and practice of these blessed doctrines, as they tend 
so manifestly to extirpate violence, injustice, and all the dreadful 
calamities of war.” Hence they send for “candid perusal” the 
Apology , which, besides setting forth their “ belief in relation to 
wars,” also gives a view of the Christian religion in its original 
simplicity. The Epistle ends with a fervent hope that the negotiators 
may be able “ to perpetuate the blessings of peace to the States you 
represent, and through them to the whole world.”* 

In November 1748 the Meeting received from Jan van der Werf 
an account of his stewardship. He had spent several days in Aix-la- 
Chapelle in September (his expenses and those of his companion, 
£30, were carefully set out and punctually defrayed by a bill from 
London), and on the whole received much courtesy from the 
Ambassadors. Although, in Quaker fashion, he kept his hat on 
at the interviews, none took offence, “ no, not the Pope’s Nuncio.” 

* Meeting for Sufferings , 5 th mo. 15, 1748 and following months. Book of 

Cases , iii. 42 foil. J 

* The English version is in D. Tracts C. 108. 


DATS OF TRADITION 


193 

There is much that is characteristic in his report of the different 
Ambassadors. The French, finding the book was “about religious 
affairs,” said he had no occasion for it, while the Prussian, after much 
questioning on the origin of the Quakers, said, “ we should come 
into Prussia, where we might enjoy all freedom.” The Bavarian 
Ambassador was churlish and would not take books which he could 
not buy, but the Spanish, Genose, and Swedish were all very cour¬ 
teous. The Spaniard offered a “ Large Piece of Gold ” for the 
books, and when that was declined, pressed a “ dish of coffee or 
chocolate or whatsoever else we chose ” upon his visitors, promising 
to convey one copy of the Apology to his King. The Nuncio, too, 
who was quartered in the Dominican convent, was very friendly, 
and although some part of the Friends’ memorial “seemed to 
displease,” he passed it over with the remark, that: “ There were 
many Christians and many books wrote, but true and real Christi¬ 
anity consisted in obeying the commands of Christ,” to which Van 
der Werf fully agreed. The Dutchman was closely questioned 
on the religion of his forefathers, and replied that as far as he knew 
they were all “ believers in the Almighty God and His Son Christ 
Jesus and His grace to the sanctifying their consciences.” “ That 
is a good faith,” said the suave ecclesiastic, “ but yet there are some 
necessary circumstances to attend it.” He then put to the Quaker 
the direct question : Could Catholics be saved ? “ I cannot judge 
other men,” replied Van der Werf, and pleaded the difficulty of 
speaking through an interpreter as an excuse for any more full answer. 
A few days after his return to Amsterdam came news that peace 
was signed. “ The fruit of years of expenditure of blood and treasure,” 
writes a modern historian, “ was the status quo ante helium ” ; 1 
yet good Van der Werf cherished the hope, as he told English Friends, 
“ that this seed sown might be prosperous through God’s blessing.” 
The Meeting for Sufferings closed the episode in December 1748, 
by instructing him to distribute the surplus copies of the Apology 
among foreigners visiting Holland, especially those that might attend 
the Meeting-house. 

The half-century of quietude was over, and soon Friends both 
at home and in America were forced to set their house in order 
and to build up again the weak places. 

1 Political History of England , ix. 418. 


13 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN TIME OF WAR—ENGLAND AND IRELAND 

1755-1815 

The Seven Years War opened in 1755, after the brief truce of 
Aix-la-Chapelle. The American War, the rise of the new Republic 
across the Atlantic, the French Revolution, and the long struggle 
between France and Europe all followed the bloody campaigns 
which made the names of Clive, of Wolfe and of Chatham, house¬ 
hold words to the English people. 

Praise enough 
To fill the ambition of a private man 
That Chatham’s language was his mother tongue 
And Wolfe’s great name compatriot with his own. 1 

In the smaller world of the Society of Friends, also, these were 
years of stress. In England and in America it entered the period 
as a prosperous, inoffensive, and somewhat cautious body. In 
England, and yet more in America, it emerged after a testing time, 
smaller in numbers, perhaps for the time narrower in outlook, and 
yet with a clearer view of some of the foundation principles of the 
Quaker faith. It was, in particular, the emphatic testimony against 
war and against slavery that had stripped the Society of so many 
members, not a few among them Friends of standing and influence. 
The labours of John Woolman fall within the first half of this 
period, and if to any one man, then assuredly to him must be 
attributed the awakening of the conscience of the Society. 2 He was 
himself an embodied conscience, and he witnessed for complete 
sincerity and pureness of heart in all the relations of life. His brief 
visit to England in 1772, sealed by his death, left an abiding impres¬ 
sion upon English Friends. 

In 1758 and 1763 the Yearly Meeting Epistle had touched 
1 Cowper, Task , Book II. » For John Woolman, <vide Chapter XIII. 

194 


IN TIME OF WAR 195 

the question of the slave trade, but it was in the year 1772 that the 
Epistle opened the long series of protests against both the trade and 
slavery itself, which were not to cease until the crime came to an 
end in British possessions. 1 

Quakers did much for the cause of the slave, but the living 
interest created by such a cause perhaps did as much for Quakerism. 
The Society gained courage and independence as it learned to plead 
for a despised race. The term “ Protestant Dissenters ” quietly 
disappears from its memorials and addresses during the reign of 
George III, and with it much of the flowery style of the earlier 
eighteenth-century documents. 

The pressure of the Seven Years War led necessarily to an 
increased vigilance by the Yearly Meeting over individual short¬ 
comings. In 1757 the Epistle again called attention to “that great 
inconsistency of being concerned in privateers, letters of Marque, 
or ships armed in a warlike manner,” and recommended subordinate 
meetings to keep a watchful eye over their members. Another 
passage expressed the better side of eighteenth-century Quietism. 
“ And, dear friends, as it hath pleased the Almighty to reveal unto 
mankind His son Jesus Christ, the peaceable Saviour, let it be our 
steady concern to demonstrate to the world that we are His followers 
by bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, 4 love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.’ 
And as we are called out of wars and fightings, so let them be as 
seldom as possible the subjects of our conversation ; but let a holy 
care rest upon us, to abide in that power which gives dominion 
over the hopes and fears of an unstable world.” 

Next year the advice against privateering was repeated, and 
the testimony against war was extracted from the eighth query 
by the Yearly Meeting, and made the subject of an independent 
query, the twelfth. This new query read as follows :— 

“ Do you bear a faithful testimony against bearing arms or 
paying Trophy Money, or being in any way concerned in privateers v 
letters of Marque, or in dealing in prize goods as such ? ” 

The Epistles of this period repeatedly caution Friends against 
in any way defrauding the revenue (the subject of another query) 

1 The subject occurs in more than half the Epistles of the sixty years from 
1772 to 1833. John Woolman, in 1772, felt that English Friends were “mixed ” 
with the slave trade, through their share in supplying manufactured goods for the 
cargoes of outward-bound slave ships. 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


196 

and against dealing in “ run ” or smuggled goods. As usual, the 
emendation in the query resulted in an awakening of conscience 
among the local meetings. Bristol and Ireland both feared that there 
had been some dealings in prize goods, while Kent reported its 
“ unspeakable pleasure and satisfaction ” to find no instances of 
participation in “ so iniquitous a trade.” Since 1755 the Seven Years’ 
War had been rolling across three continents, till in 1759 the tide 
turned against France. The Yearly Meeting was constrained to 
remind Friends that public rejoicing over victories was inconsistent 
with a refusal to take part in war. Next year the result was seen by 
a report from London Friends of damage “for not illuminating 
windows ” to the extent of nearly j£i i. 1 

In 1760 a joint Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings and 
the Morning Meeting drew up a paper of Advice “ to be dispersed 
among Friends’ Families respecting the keeping their shops shut 
on Fast Days and the illuminating of windows on what are called 
rejoicing nights,” of which two thousand were printed and distributed 
to the Monthly Meetings. 2 This “ Tender Advice and Caution ” 
referred any waverers to the light which had guided early Friends. 
“ In this light . . . they not only saw that they must cease from 
outward hostility, but that their conversation and conduct must be 
consistent, and of a piece throughout. As they could not join with 
others in shedding the blood of their fellow creatures, neither could 
they be one with them in rejoicing for the advantages obtained 
by such bloodshed ; as they could not fight with the fighters, neither 
could they triumph with the conquerors ; and therefore they were 
not to be prevailed upon to make a show of conformity by placing 
lights in any part of the fronts of their houses ; but patiently suffered 
whatever violences and abuses were committed against them, for 
the sake of their peaceable Christian Testimony.” 

1 Isaac Richardson (born 1707) “has left it on record that the mob of Whitby 
three times broke his windows and destroyed his property, because he, like other 
Friends, refused to illuminate his house on occasions of public rejoicing. Fifty 
years later ... in Sunderland, blazing tar barrels were rolled along the streets to 
burn down the house of a Friend who would not illuminate on some occasion when 
political feeling ran high. The work had begun when a gentleman whose sympathies 
were with Friends, but who, not being a member of their Society, was not bound 
by its regulations, hurried to the barracks and appealed to the officer in command. 
The soldiers were soon on the spot, and the half-burned house was saved ” ( Records 
of a Quaker family , by A. B. Richardson, p. 17). 

> Morning Meeting Book , 2th mo. 25, 1760. I am indebted for this passage to 
A. Neave Brayshaw. 


IN TIME OF W.JR 


197 

Their successors in the Society should not lightly abandon this 
testimony. “ The Spirit of Truth . . . will unite us to itself, 
and lead us into unity one with another, baptizing us into one body, 
and causing us to drink of one Spirit, and doubtless would bring 
all to bear the same Testimony in every essential point of faith and 
conduct, and would ever preserve us from differing so far as to appear 
contrary to each other, and thereby from laying waste our ancient 
Testimony and, by that means, depriving the body of the strength 
of Unity. And though mere uniformity is not the essential part of 
religion, yet it is the indispensable duty of all to endeavour after 
the Unity of the Spirit, which, as it prevails, naturally produceth 
a consistency and harmony, both in reality and appearance, that all, 
being gathered into the same Spirit, may see by the same light, and 
may, like the primitive Church, be of one heart and of one soul. 

. . . Therefore let no branch of the Testimony of Truth be opposed 
as insignificant or treated with contempt.” 

The same difficulty was to recur in the Napoleonic War. 

In the meantime the pressure of war had led to army re¬ 
organization and extension. In March 1756 a Militia Bill was 
introduced with Pitt’s support, the aim of which was to establish a 
regularly trained army of reserve. This was passed in the Commons, 
but thrown out by the Lords, as tending “ to make this a military 
country and government.” In 1757 the Bill was passed into law 
in a modified form. It was, however, unpopular, and on the attempt 
to enforce it in the autumn, riots broke out in several counties. 1 
Friends watched the matter anxiously through a vigilant Committee 
of the Meeting for Sufferings. The first Militia Bill was considered 
on its introduction and judged likely “ to expose the Society to very 
grievous suffering.” A deputation approached the Chairman of the 
House of Commons Committee, who assured them “ that it could 
not be possible to obtain a total exemption from some expense, but 
that nothing of this kind was intended to be inflicted as any punishment 
for not complying, but as a reasonable compensation to the country.” 
He accordingly suggested a clause by which, if the ballot fell upon a 
Quaker a substitute should be hired, and the expense met by distraint 
on the Quaker’s goods. However, the fact that the Bill was “ dropt 
in the House of Lords ” prevented further action. Next year the 

1 Vide Gentleman's Magazine, 1757. Cowper in the Task (“ Winter Evening,’* 
6 1 3-58), nearly thirty years later, gave a vivid description of what seemed to him 
the social evils of the three years’ militia training. 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


198 

new Bill was passed into law, with this clause exempting Quakers 
from personal service. In June the Meeting for Sufferings with just 
pride transcribed into its records a minute of the Yearly Meeting 
expressing satisfaction with the “ care and pains ” taken by the former 
meeting in the matter. A new and comprehensive Militia Bill of 
1762 replaced this experimental Act and remained in force for twenty- 
four years. Two clauses especially affected Friends. By one it was 
provided that if a Quaker were chosen by lot to serve and refused 
or neglected to appear and to take the oath or to provide a substitute, 
the Deputy-Lieutenants or other local authorities, “ upon as reasonable 
terms as may be,” should provide a substitute to serve for three years, 
and levy a distraint upon the goods of the Quaker to defray the 
expense. If the distraint provided more money than was required, 
the surplus was to be returned and the Quaker had the right of appeal 
should the distress seem unduly oppressive. Under another clause, 
when a rate for the expenses of the militia was levied upon any 
parish, and Quaker householders refused to contribute, the justice 
of the peace was authorized to recover the amount by process of 
distraint. 

The Meeting for Sufferings was entrusted by the Yearly 
Meeting with the task of circulating information about the provisions 
of the Act. But it proved more timid than the larger body. On 
June 17, 1762, a sub-committee reported to the Meeting that: 
“We are of opinion that it will not be safe to put the advice, left 
by the Yearly Meeting respecting the Militia into print, inasmuch 
as those mistaken or malignant persons who are continually watching 
against the Society for evil, might make a pernicious use of them 
by representing Friends as taking upon them publicly to control and 
oppugn the acts of the legislature.” Hence they recommended that 
manuscript copies of the said advices should be circulated among 
the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, while only the special clauses 
of the Act relating to Friends should be printed for distribution. 
The advices, as they appear in the pages of the Yearly Meeting 
records, do not seem to the modern reader either seditious or dangerous. 
Probably the declaration that “ it is our sense and judgment that we 
cannot, consistent with our well-known principles,” pay the militia 
rates or hold offices involving the duty of their collection, was the 
sentence which roused the fears of the Meeting for Sufferings. But 
this opinion is immediately followed by a direction to the local 
Meetings that “Friends should be tenderly advised to avoid giving 


IN TIME OF WAR i 99 

occasion of reproach by any unjustifiable endeavours to evade or 
elude the law, and that in all cases wherein they allege a conscientious 
scruple for not actively paying what may be demanded of them, 
that they manifest by a patient and Christian conduct under such 
sufferings as may attend in consequence thereof that their scruples 
are real and sincere.” 

In any case, the Society as a whole was prepared to uphold the 
position of the Yearly Meeting. From 1761 until 1815, these 
distraints for the militia and other local rates levied for war purposes 
are constantly recorded and reach a formidable total. They were 
not finally abolished until the army re-organization of 1848. The 
militia was included, as an occasion for peace testimony, in the 
twelfth query in 1761. In the following year, deputations appointed 
from the Yearly Meeting visited all the Monthly and Quarterly 
Meetings in England to strengthen and encourage them in the 
faith. A few delinquencies, both in regard to the hire of substitutes 
for the militia and also in the arming of ships were found in the 
North and West. In the London district “ too many concur with 
others in giving public testimony of joy upon the devastation of 
war and other occasions of illuminating their windows.” 

When peace was concluded with France in 1763, the Yearly 
Meeting presented an address to the young King. Though loyal 
and respectful in tone, it is much less adulatory than those offered 
to his grandfather. “To a people ” (it runs) “ professing that the 
use of arms is to them unlawful, a people who reverence the glorious 
Gospel declaration of good will to men and fervently wish for the 
universal establishment of peace, its return must be highly acceptable. 
To stop the effusion of blood, to ease the burden of thy people, and 
terminate the calamities that affected so large a part of the globe, 
we are persuaded were thy motives to effect the present pacification. 
Motives so just in themselves, so full of benevolence and humanity, 
demand our united and cordial approbation. May the sovereign 
of the Universe, who created all nations of one blood, dispose the 
minds of Princes by such example, to learn other means of reconciling 
their jarring interests and contentions than by the ruin of countries 
and the destruction of mankind.” 

George III was not to prove an apt scholar in the art of peace, 
but he returned a kindly answer to the Address. Like Charles II 
he was amused by Quaker simplicities, and maintained a friendly, 
though eccentric, intercourse with individual members of the Society. 


200 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

It was perhaps the knowledge of this royal interest that encouraged 
contemporary journalists to make considerable “ copy ” out of the 
Quakers. The Gentleman's Magazine , for example, between 1765 
and 1810, often printed the Yearly Meeting Epistle, or extracts 
from it, in its pages, and allowed its correspondents much latitude 
in friendly and unfriendly criticism of Quaker tenets. 1 This, at 
any rate, made Friends’ principles known, and perhaps had some 
influence upon public opinion. 

Peace, however, did not end the militia fines, and Quarterly 
Meetings had to report occasional delinquencies, such as the actual 
enlistment of a member in Yorkshire in 1767 and next year the 
payment of the rate in Derbyshire by some “ who plead for the 
same.” The old trouble of the “ mixed rate ” (a militia rate levied 
as part of the poor rate) recurred, and although a Committee of the 
Yearly Meeting which examined the text of the Militia Act in 1770 
declared that any expenditure for such purposes out of the poor rate 
must legally be re-imbursed by a distinct and separate rate, yet the 
difficulty arose year after year in various districts. 

For a few years during the interval of peace the clause concerning 
armed vessels was dropped out of the war query (now the eleventh) 
but the American War made its re-introduction necessary. The 
outbreak of resistance naturally caused grave concern to Friends. 
The Meeting for Sufferings in February 1775 had the courage 
to address the House of Commons in protest against the Bill (one 
of the King’s methods of conciliating his rebellious subjects) by which 
the fishermen of Nantucket were to be debarred for ever from the 
use of the Newfoundland fisheries. Of the five thousand inhabitants, 
nine-tenths were Quakers, and the Meeting explained (as the King 
and his advisers well knew) that such a prohibition meant utter 
ruin. In March they made an earnest effort in favour of peace, by 
an address to the King. The plea ran thus :— 

“ From the intercourse subsisting between us and our brethren 
abroad, for the advancement of piety and virtue, we are persuaded 
there are not, in the extensive dominions, subjects more loyal, 
and more zealously attached to thy Royal person, thy family, and 
Government, than in the Province of America and amongst 
all religious denominations. We presume not to justify the 
excesses committed, nor to inquire into the causes which may 
have produced them ; but, influenced by the principles of that 

1 Vide J.F.H.S.y 1916, Nos. 1 and 2. J. J. Green, Notices Relating to Friends 
in the "Gentleman's Magazine 


201 


IN TIME OF WAR 

religion which proclaims 4 Peace on earth and goodwill to men,’ 
we heartily beseech thee to stay the sword ; that means may be tried 
to effect, without bloodshed, and all the evils of internecine war, 
a firm and lasting union with our fellow subjects in America.” 
The task, they add, is an arduous one ; but they are confident that 
men can be found on both sides of the Atlantic capable of conducting 
such a mediation. Men, indeed, there were, some of them Friends 
or closely connected with Friends, who were spending themselves 
in the effort. Throughout December 1774 and the following January 
and February Dr. Fothergill and David Barclay, both well-known 
London Friends, were in frequent conference with Franklin, and 
with some of the more moderate members of the English ministry, 
in the attempt to find terms of settlement acceptable both to the 
colonists and the home Government. Franklin, with the advice 
and encouragement of the two Quakers, drafted these terms under 
the modest title, “ Hints for a Conversation.” They influenced 
Chatham’s abortive proposals in the House of Lords on February 1. 
Fothergill, whose profession had brought him into friendly relations 
with leading politicians, showed them to Lord Dartmouth and the 
Speaker, and Barclay to Lord Hyde. With Lord Howe, Franklin 
was carrying on tentative and informal “ conversations.” There is 
evidence that through Hyde and through Dartmouth, the well- 
intentioned but weak Secretary for the Colonies, the proposals came 
before the Cabinet, or at least before its leading members. But 
the Quakers were much disappointed by the attitude of ministers ; 
when Franklin, in despair, sailed for America, he took with him 
a message from Fothergill to Philadelphia Friends: “Whatever 
specious pretences are offered they are all hollow. . . . Nothing 
very favourable is intended.” 1 

1 For some of these details, wide Dr. John 'Fothergill and His Friends , by Dr. R. 
Hingston Fox. There is a minute autobiographical account of the negotiations 
by Franklin in his Memoir (Works, i. 430 foil., edition 1818). See also Sir George 
Trevelyan, The American Revolution, i. c. viii. According to Franklin, Barclay 
was also a prime mover in the “ Merchants’ Petition ” against the war. Fothergill 
was constant in advice and sympathy to American Friends until his death in 1781. 
Franklin always felt esteem for his two fellow workers in the attempt to avert 
war. On Fothergill’s death he wrote from his post in Paris to Barclay :— 

“ I condole with you most sincerely in the loss of our dear friend, Dr. Fothergill. 

I hope that someone who knew him well will do justice to him by an account of 
his life and character. He was a great doer of good. How much might have been 
done, and how much evil prevented if his, your, and my joint endeavours in a 
certain melancholy affair had been attended to ! ” 

Franklin was not given to indiscriminate eulogy, least of all of his Quaker 
acquaintances, and this letter is good testimony to Fothergill’s merits. 


202 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


Although George III heard the address “favourably,” he had 
neither the will nor the power to stay the sword. The Epistle, two 
months later, could only express a hope that Friends on both sides 
of the Atlantic might keep clear of “ the present heats and commo¬ 
tions,” and entreat members not to make them even the subject 
of conversation. But the mild conservatism of official Quakerdom 
cannot hide its bias. “ We cannot consistently join with such as 
form combinations of an hostile nature against any, much less in 
opposition to those providentially placed either in sovereign or 
subordinate authority ; nor can we unite with such as indecently 
asperse or revile them.” Other Yearly Epistles of this war period 
express warm sympathy with the sufferings and privations of Friends 
in America, to whom (especially to those of Pennsylvania) generous 
contributions of relief were sent by their fellow members in England 
and Ireland. In 1779 the Epistle gave a plain warning against war 
activities and war profit-making whether by sea or land. Any who 
thus backslide “ afford evident tokens that they either prefer the 
gain of a corrupt interest to the convictions of divine light in their 
own conscience, or that they are become insensible to them.” Two 
years later the advice was even more emphatic. “ Keep clear of 
touching in any respect, or dealing in those things which tend to 
promote the dreadful calamity of war. Let not the love of gain 
be put in competition with the welfare and happiness of mankind.” 
The Epistle of 1783, which welcomed the return of peace, for the 
first time mentioned the militia fines as a “suffering” of Friends. 
The war had unmistakably tried the weak places in the Society. 
Some Cornish Friends in time of peace had acquired an interest 
in a “ packet employed by the General Post Office,” which, on the 
outbreak of war, was “ equipped in a warlike manner for defence, 
but with no commission to take prizes, and with positive orders 
to avoid all other ships.” The Friends tried to withdraw from the 
concern, but without success, and this mild-mannered mail packet 
eventually captured some French prizes. How these events brought 
a little group of French Quakers to the notice of English Friends 
is told in another chapter. 1 

Not only Yorkshire, but several other seaboard Meetings, had 
to report “deficiencies” in the matter of armed vessels in these 
years when Paul Jones was disturbing the boasted immunity of 
British shores. In 1777 the clause dealing with this branch of 
1 Vide Chapter XVII, p. 469. 


IN TIME OF WAR 203 

testimony was re-inserted in the query. At Norwich in 1780 “ one 
unguarded youth lately enlisted himself in the Army,” and another 
joined the militia. Both were dealt with by their meeting. A Welsh 
Friend was concerned in privateers and letters of Marque, but in 
1781 he gave in “a paper of condemnation of the practice, with 
an assurance of renouncing it, to the satisfaction of the meeting 
he belongs to. That same year, Yorkshire, besides the usual 

sorrowful defection,” had to lament over a few members who 
bought prize tobacco at the sales. 

Another vessel part-owned by a Friend, John Warder, in 1781, 
took out letters of Marque without his knowledge, and on the voyage 
to New York captured a Dutch East Indiaman. His share of the 
prize-money was £2,000, which, on the advice of his Monthly 
Meeting in London (Devonshire House), he invested for the benefit 
of the original owners, “ whensoever they might be found.” He 
had already disposed of his share in the privateer, but when a few 
years later he removed to Philadelphia, his Monthly Meeting refused 
to grant him the usual certificate recommending him to the fellow¬ 
ship of Philadelphia Friends, on the ground that he had taken no 
steps to restore the money. His duty was evidently pressed upon 
him by his new associates, and at last, in 1799, he transferred to 
the London Monthly Meeting both the principal and interest to be 
refunded to the Dutch owners, or dealt with as Friends might 
think “ most consistent with truth and equity.” Upon this he received 
his certificate. The London Friends at once inserted an advertise¬ 
ment in the Dutch papers, and although investigations were 
hampered by the war, yet by 1818 claims amounting with interest 
to £7,000 had been settled. There still remained a balance of £2,000, 
and this was applied to the building and maintenance in Amsterdam 
of an infant school, one of the first of its kind, which is still doing 
useful work. 1 The school was named “ Hollandische Welvaren ” 
(Holland’s Welfare) after the captured ship. 

Bristol Friends on March 1, 1780, spent an unpleasant evening 
from their refusal to illuminate their houses on the news of a 
British victory. The mob broke windows wholesale and threatened 
to burn the houses, while the captain of the local militia, a magistrate, 
led the window-breaking with some of his soldiers. The letter in 

* Luke Howard, The Torkshireman , ii. 327. There is a full account of the 
episode and of the present school by Mary Willis Brown in Bulletin of Friends' 
Historical Society (Philadelphia), May 1916. 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


204 

which Joseph Fry of Bristol informed the Meeting for Sufferings 
of the riot, naively adds that “ if an account of another victory should 
arrive, we fear a repetition of the insult in a much greater degree.” 1 
But the course of the American War was not such as to bring much 
more inconvenience to the Quakers of Bristol. 

The war had long been unpopular with all Englishmen except 
the King and some of the “ King’s friends,” yet even so the Address 
of the Society to George III on the conclusion of peace contained 
a bold passage. 

“ When we reflect on the dreadful calamities and the great 
effusion of human blood which ever attend the prosecution of war, 
we deeply lament that any of the professors of the Christian religion 
should continue a practice so inconsistent with the doctrines of 
Christ the Prince of Peace.” But George III, stubborn and 
petulant with his trusted ministers and insanely bitter against his 
political opponents, never took offence at Quaker plainness. 
“ I always receive ” (he replied) “ with pleasure your assurance 
of duty and affection to my person and family, and do so particularly 
upon the event of peace. You may be assured of my constant 
protection, as your uniform attachment to my Government, and 
peaceable disposition are highly acceptable to me.” In this same 
year, 1783, the first petition against the slave trade, signed by 273 
Quakers, was presented by the Yearly Meeting to the House of 
Commons. 2 Its promoters had been well received by Fox and North, 
leaders of the Coalition, and Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of 
the Exchequer. 

In the House North, in some kindly phrases, welcomed the 
action of “ the most benevolent Society in the Universe,” but the 
address was allowed to lie upon the table. The Society for the Aboli¬ 
tion of the Slave Trade was formed in 1787, with ten Quakers 
on the first committee of twelve members, and through weary 
years their help in time, influence, and money was ungrudgingly 
given to Clarkson and Wilberforce. One result of this intercourse 
was the awakening in Clarkson of a great interest in the Society, 
which eventually led him in 1807 to publish in three volumes 
a Portraiture of Quakerism. This work, though not free from 

1 Meeting for Sufferings , 3rd mo. 17, 1780. 

* Book of Cases , iii. 197. A Friend, William Southeby, petitioned the 
Pennsylvania Assembly against slavery in 1712 (Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution , 
p. 232). 


IN TIME OF WAR 


205 

inaccuracy, was in many respects a sympathetic study of Friends, 
and no doubt introduced a knowledge of their views and character 
into circles which had hitherto been prejudiced against them. In his 
introduction Clarkson remarks as a trait of Quaker character that 
“ whenever they can be brought to argue upon political questions, 
they reason upon principles and not upon consequences” ; the long 
exposition of their “ tenet on war,” which fills nearly a hundred 
pages of his third volume, opens with the emphatic declaration 
that “ there is no such character as that of a Quaker soldier. A 
Quaker is always able to avoid the regular army, because the 
circumstance of entering into it is generally a matter of choice. 
But where he has no such choice, as is the case in the militia, he 
either submits, if he has property, to distraint upon it ; or if he has 
not, to prison.” This statement is interesting, as showing what, 
in the view of an onlooker, was the general practice of the Friends 
in regard to the militia, even at a time when Quarterly Meetings 
were lamenting over the “ sorrowful deficiencies ” among their 
members. 

From the allusion to prison it will be seen that the hand of 
the law gradually tightened upon Quakers. In the earlier Militia 
Acts an ordinary delinquent who refused or evaded service when 
balloted was liable to three months’ imprisonment if he proved 
unable to pay the costs of a substitute. The clauses relating to 
Friends made provision only for fine or distraint, and the case of a 
young apprentice, or other Friend of small means, was not con¬ 
sidered. Occasionally a magistrate, willing to stretch the utmost 
rigour of the law, sent such a Friend to prison. The Book of Cases 
shows the vigilance of the Meeting for Sufferings in maintaining 
Friends’ legal rights. In 1759 it obtained an opinion from 
Bicknell, K.C., that the Act gave no power to imprison Quakers. 
He added, “ I apprehend that the legislature, out of tenderness 
towards the Quakers’ religious principles or scruples, who hold it 
unlawful to bear arms or fight in war, did not intend to make them 
liable to personal punishment.” Under the Act of 1762 a Friend, 
Daniel Massey, was imprisoned at Chester. Dunning, the great 
Whig lawyer, was appealed to, and considered that the sufferer had a 
right to apply for his discharge by a writ of Habeas Corpus. In the 
time of the American War two cases tested the same point of law. 

Bernard Harrison was a young servant of David Barclay. In 
1776 he was drawn for the militia at Standon, Hertfordshire, but 


206 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTXJRT 


had no property on which distress could be levied, “ save his clothes.” 
The Hertford magistrates in these circumstances, when he “ inti¬ 
mated his religious objection to the bearing of arms,” proposed 
to commit him to gaol. His master took up the matter, showing the 
justices copies of the legal opinions already quoted. To this they 
replied that these were out of date. Nothing daunted, David Barclay 
proposed that both sides should obtain a fresh opinion, which was 
done. The Deputy-Lieutenants took the case to Lloyd Kenyon, 
later Lord Chief Justice, who confessed that the Act “ was not as 
explicit as one could wish,” but was “ inclined to think ” that a 
justice had power to commit a Quaker. Barclay, however, was 
encouraged to persevere by the support of several magistrates, who 
(as he told the Meeting for Sufferings) “ reprobated the opinion 
in severe terms, and said if the Society did not defend the particular 
privilege which Parliament had given them, they did not deserve 
it ; that it was a Common Cause and so notoriously known that an 
Englishman cannot legally be deprived of his Liberty without a 
positive direction in an Act of Parliament that there could not be 
a shadow of risk in defending the privilege.” He applied to Thurlow, 
then Attorney-General, and shortly after Lord Chancellor. The 
reply was emphatic :— 

“ I am of opinion that a Quaker cannot be legally committed 
by virtue of the Act, and consequently that if the Commitment 
pursues the case, he may be discharged by Habeas Corpus.” 

To this the Deputy-Lieutenants submitted. Bernard Harrison 
was excused service, and a fresh ballot taken in Standon to fill his 
place. The Meeting for Sufferings took steps to inform all Quarterly 
and Monthly Meetings of the case, sending to them copies of 
Thurlow’s opinion. In 1782 Thomas French of Sibford found 
himself in the same position, and though a fresh ballot was taken 
no one could be found to serve. The militia officer concerned pressed, 
not for imprisonment, but for the conscription of French on the 
ground that the former punishment was by no means adequate 
at a time of national danger. He rested this claim on an amending 
Act of 1779 (19 Geo. Ill, c. 72) which provided that when a 
person without effects declined to serve, his “ name shall be entered 
on the bill and he shall be handed over to some proper officer of 
the regiment or company for which he was drawn, and be compelled 
to serve for the full term of three years . . . and be liable to the 
same punishments as if regularly enlisted. Friends claimed that 


IN TIME OF WAR 207 

this provision did not apply to members of their Society. Keynon’s 
opinion was again invoked. In the five years’ interval he had become 
Attorney-General and he had, seemingly, made up his mind on 
points of legal construction, for he replied in decisive terms 

“ It would be harsh measure if the legislature made any law 
pressing upon tender consciences, and if any clause affords two 
constructions it would be reasonable to adopt that construction 
which avoided so great severity.” The fine, he added, levied on a 
Quaker was not punitive, but only sufficient to provide a substitute, 
“ and in all this the Quaker is to be passive and not active.” Another 
amending Act of 1778 had also threatened some unnecessary 
hardships to Quakers. By it, as introduced to the House of Com¬ 
mons, to prevent false claims no person could be accepted as a 
Quaker within the meaning of the Act, unless he produced a certi¬ 
ficate of acknowledgment from two Quaker householders. If he 
then refused to serve and was possessed of no property, the distraint 
was to be levied on the property of the certifying Quakers ,. The 
Meeting for Sufferings, however, applied at once to Members of 
Parliament and to the Speaker, with the result that this latter clause 
was dropped. Yet another Act in 1786 (26 Geo. 3, c. 107) made 
a breach in the Quaker immunity from imprisonment. If a 
Quaker (such is the effect of the clause) has no goods upon which 
to distrain, although in the opinion of the Deputy-Lieutenants 
he is able, if willing, to pay the sum of £10, then “it shall be 
lawful ” for them to commit him to gaol for three months, or until 
payment be made. The power was thus permissive and not 
obligatory. It was little used until war hardened the temper of the 
authorities, although in 1788 George Gibson, a well-known Friend 
of Saffron Walden, reported to the Meeting for Sufferings that 
John Bush, from the neighbouring town of Thaxted, was imprisoned 
on this account at Chelmsford, and that no relief could be obtained. 
Militia sufferings everywhere, as reported by the Quarterly Meetings, 
were heavy this year. The Yearly Meeting, becoming aware “ that 
the practice of arming ships prevails in some trades in time of peace ” 
(presumably those which plied near the haunts of Algerine corsairs), 
directed that the whole of the eleventh query should be answered 
every year. 

In 1790 a Written Epistle was sent out by the Yearly Meeting 
to its subordinates in reference to the queries, the replies to which 
in future are no longer summarized on the minutes. It utters an 


208 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

emphatic condemnation of all warlike practices, including the manu¬ 
facture or sale of arms, “ and as warlike preparations are making 
in this country, we entreat Friends to be watchful, lest any be drawn 
into loans, arming or hiring out their ships, or otherwise promoting 
the destruction of the human species.” The warning against loans 
is evidence both of the change in the nature of military resources 
and of the increasing wealth of many Friends. The war query 
in 1792 in a re-arrangement of the series, returned to its old 
position of eighth, and was simplified to: “Are Friends faithful 
in our testimony against bearing arms, and being in any manner 
concerned in the militia, in privateers, letters of Marque, or armed 
vessels, and dealing in prize goods ? ” In a few months war was 
upon them. The Correspondence of Charles James Fox gives a 
lively picture of the anxiety with which English Liberals followed 
the gradual estrangement of the French and English Governments 
English Quakers, as a body, had little sympathy with the Revolu¬ 
tion, but their horror at the catastrophe was as keen. Cobden, who 
was not in the habit of making statements at random, declared at 
the Manchester Peace Conference in January 1853, that “the 
Society of Friends co-operated with Mr. Fox and his colleagues 
in trying to prevent that most unrighteous and most unhappy war 
of the French Revolution. I find that Mr. Gurney of Norwich 
corresponded constantly with Mr. Fox in the House of Commons, 
and that Mr. Fox corresponded with Mr. Gurney, entreating him 
to get up a county meeting in Norfolk and encouraging him to get 
up numerous petitions from Norwich.” 1 

On January 25, 1793, the Meeting for Sufferings passed the 
following minute : “ This Meeting, being weightily impressed 

with a sense of the calamities attendant on war, the inconsistency 
thereof with Christianity, and the present prospect of such an event 
taking place, concludes to adjourn to to-morrow morning at ten 
to take the affair into further consideration. John Ady is directed 
to summon the absent members.” Next day the Meeting adopted 
a strongly worded address to the King against the threatened 
war. 

“We cannot at this time discharge our duty to God, to thee, 
and to our fellow subjects, many of whose precious lives may be the 

1 The speech is given in the Herald of Peace, February 1853, and in Cobden’s 
Speeches (edited Bright and Thorold Rogers, pp. 527-8), <vide also Morley, 
Life of Cob den , ch. xxi. 


IN TIME OF WAR 209 

victims of the impending hostilities, without beseeching thee to 
exert thy constitutional power to prevent a measure which may 
consign to danger and to death thousands of our fellow countrymen.” 
The protection of the kingdom rests with God rather than with 
any armed strength ; the pursuit of righteousness, and in particular 
the abolition of the slave trade, will give the nations favour in His 
sight. The address was presented by three Friends whose company 
was declared to be “ acceptable ” by a message from the Secretary 
of State. To them the King returned a friendly but unhopeful 
answer :— 

“ Whatever steps I may feel myself bound to take for the security 
of my people, I am not the less inclined to judge favourably of the 
motives which have led you to present this address, and you may 
depend upon the continuance of my protection.” 

The twenty-one years of war which followed were difficult 
ones for the Quakers, as the national resources were drawn upon 
with increasing rigour to meet the growing power of Napoleon. 
Nor was the Society entirely united. Some wealthy Friends who 
led a life of decorous luxury and sat loose in many respects to the 
generally accepted code of their fellow members, shed their peace 
views, or, in some cases, had none to shed. To give one instance, 
of Samuel Hoare the banker, it was said: “Trusting in the 
superiority of our Navy, and calculating the length of time which 
must elapse before a fleet could be raised, he never believed it possible 
that Buonaparte could make good a landing in this country. 
Educated in the principles of a sect reprobating war, he looked upon 
it in the present state of society as a necessary evil. Defensive war 
he regarded as lawful ; the nice point was determined when it 
became so ; for where preventive measures are not had recourse to, 
defence may become impossible. . . . Self-defence he considered 
lawful, and that it is the duty of a man to defend his country.” 1 
Quakers of this type seldom gave offence by any overt act of war¬ 
like tendency, though they might gradually drift away from the 
Society or be disowned on other grounds. On the north-east coast 
Quaker shipowners and sea-captains were faced by the old dilemma. 
Disownments “ for carrying guns on ships ” were not so numerous 
as in the American War, but the process was more summary and 
less attempt was made to reclaim the delinquent. It is to this period 
that many of the often-repeated stories of warlike Quakers belong. 

1 Memoirs of Samuel Hoare (1751-1815), by his daughter and widow, 1911. 


210 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

When name, place, and date are wanting, these are difficult to verify, 
and their details do not carry conviction. 

As the war continued and was felt at home in high prices and 
scarcity, an attempt was made by some unscrupulous journals to 
divert unpopularity from the Ministry to the Quakers. A consider¬ 
able number of Friends were engaged in the corn trade, either as 
millers or dealers, and the Morning Advertiser in 1799 charged 
them with the responsibility for the high price of corn and bread 
by forming a combination to monopolize the supply. The poor 
were starving—for two or three years past William Allen the 
chemist and other Friends had been maintaining a soup kitchen 
in Spitalfields for the relief of the worst cases of distress—and when 
in 1800 the price of the quartern loaf rose, first to fifteen pence 
and then to seventeen pence halfpenny, the more desperate among 
the sufferers were ready to vent their anger upon any scapegoat. 
There were some ugly riots in the City and East London. William 
Allen noted in his Journal that at his father’s burial the Whitechapel 
rabble “ proved very disturbing.” One mob attacked Robert 
Howard’s factory in Old Street, in the belief that stores of grain 
were concealed there. 1 But, though the owner would call in no 
assistance, his workpeople were not Quakers, and beat off the attack 
with their wooden stools, the only weapons at hand. Robert Howard 
published a brief vindication quaintly entitled, “A Few Words 
on Corn and Quakers,” which it is unlikely that his assailants ever 
read. In October the Meeting for Sufferings was under “ deep 
concern at the calumnies which Friends lie under on account of the 
dearness of corn,” and after some discussion of the newspaper attacks 
a statement was drawn up for publication in the Press, declaring 
their abhorrence of the “ wicked and baneful practices ” of combina¬ 
tion and monopoly. Some help came to them from an unimpeach¬ 
able quarter. The Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor 
had watched the work of Quakers in Spitalfields and elsewhere, 
and its Committee, meeting in December 1800, with Shute, 
Bishop of Durham, in the chair, passed unanimously the following 
resolution :— 

“ That it appearing to the Society that the labouring classes 
in this metropolis have derived the greatest benefit, during the severity 
of the preceding winter, from the personal labours and liberal contribu- 

1 In John Halifax the Quaker miller of fiction is guilty of thus holding back 
corn for a higher price. 


IN TIME OF WAR 


211 


tions of the Friends, commonly called Quakers, it is incumbent 
upon the Society to bear public testimony to these exertions and 
to express our desire to co-operate with them in their meritorious 
endeavours to diminish the distresses of their fellow subjects. 
Resolved , that this Resolution, signed by the President, be inserted 
in the public papers.” 1 

Philanthropy, indeed, was the main refuge of the Society in those 
years of war and unrest. Friends took part in the struggle against 
slavery, and helped young Lancaster, at that time himself a Quaker, 
with his plans for national education. From its foundation in 1804 
three Friends were on the Committee of the Bible Society ; as 
the war opened, William Tuke began at York his pioneer work 
in the treatment of insanity, and before its close Elizabeth Fry was 
visiting the prisoners in Newgate. None of these movements, except 
that against slavery, was officially adopted by the Society, which 
still contained many conservative members who feared that such 
“ creaturely activity” might lead Friends astray ; but the exhorta¬ 
tions of the Yearly Epistles throughout the war are in evident harmony 
with the new conception of social responsibility. 

“ Cultivate, with unwearied assiduity and patience, all those 
dispositions which make for peace,” urged the Epistle of 1797 : 
a year later, “ let all be careful not to seek or accept profit by any 
concern in the preparations so extensively making for war : for 
how reproachfully inconsistent would it be to refuse an active 
compliance with warlike measures, and at the same time not to 
hesitate to enrich ourselves by the commerce and other circum¬ 
stances dependent on war.” In 1802 Friends, after the Peace of 
Amiens, were reminded “ that it peculiarly behoves us, as we are 
well known to have a testimony against those modes of rejoicing, 
even for peace itself, which are generally attended with profusion 
and tumult, to evince that we really rejoice at the prosperity of our 
country, by doing good, according to our ability to all.” 

In 1804, when war was renewed, the Epistle set out at length 
the grounds of the Society’s stand against war, at the same time 
uttering a warning against the weakness of individuals. “Friends, 
it is an awful thing to stand forth to the nation as the advocates 

x Vide Life of William Allen, i. 46-50. Luke Howard, The Yorhhireman , <vide 
pp. 28 foil. In 1801 the Friends of Pennsylvania and New Jersey sent a contribu¬ 
tion of £5,691 to London Friends to be used for the relief of distress. This was 
specifically sent in gratitude for the help of English Friends during the War of 
Independence. 


212 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


of inviolable peace ; and our testimony loses its efficacy in propor¬ 
tion to the want of consistency in any.” “ Guard against placing 
your dependence on fleets and armies ” (this in 1805, the year of 
Trafalgar) ; “ be peaceable yourselves in words and actions ; and pray 
to the Father of the Universe that he would breathe the spirit of 
reconciliation into the hearts of His erring and contending creatures.” 
“The root of our testimony against war” (in 1809) “is no other 
than Christian love.” Side by side with these testimonies the 
Epistles and the Yearly Meeting Records recount the heavy distraints 
for the non-payment of “ demands for warlike measures,” which 
in several years amount to two or three thousand pounds (apart 
from the much larger claims in respect of tithes) 1 and (especially 
in the later years of the war) the imprisonment of young Quakers 
who refused to serve in the militia and were without property on 
which distress could be levied to procure substitutes. In 1813 young 
Joseph Sturge only escaped the imprisonment he was very ready 
to endure by the loss of the flock of sheep with which his father 
had stocked for him a little farm. 2 The position of Quakers in regard 
to service in the militia distinctly worsened during the war as legisla¬ 
tion increased in stringency, and the Meeting for Sufferings could 
do little but notify the changes as they took place. In June 1793 
it circulated among Friends the clauses of the consolidated Militia 
Act of 1786 which concerned them, including that which made 
the unpropertied Quaker liable to imprisonment, and particularly 
warned Friends against paying the militia rate when illegally levied 
as part of the poor rate. 

In 1795 it petitioned the House of Commons for relief from 
the Navy Bill providing that the owners of merchant ships should 
provide a certain proportion of sailors to the Royal Navy, since 
Friend shipowners could not supply “ men for the purposes of war.” 
This Bill, in conjunction with the dilemma of the armed ship, made 
the shipping business one almost impossible for Friends. Pitt, in 
November 1796 introduced a Cavalry Act, for the supply both of 
horses and riders, which in its original form inflicted the very heavy 
fine of £20 per horse in case of non-compliance. In the following 
January, however, an amending Act was passed, by which any 

1 The Yearly Meeting is more than once concerned to contradict a prevalent 
report that the account kept of these “ sufferings ” was for the purpose of the 
Society refunding their losses to individual members. 

* Life of Joseph Sturge , by H. Richard, p. 23. 


IN TIME OF WAR 213 

acknowledged Quaker was fined £1 in lieu of every horse required 
from him. Some Friends chose this easy way of escape, for the next 
Yearly Meeting expressed its concern “to find that it is in any 
degree necessary to declare that the said fine, and all other such 
fines imposed in lieu of military service, let the application be what 
it may, cannot be actively complied with by Friends, consistently 
with our principles.” Taxes, imposed by the Central Government, 
whose application was more general than that of these war rates 
and fines, were usually paid by Friends, but in 1799 special war 
tax was levied under the title of “an Aid and Contribution for 
the prosecution of the war.” Of those Friends affected by it, some 
refused to pay and submitted to distraint, while others were 
“ uneasy ” ; when an income tax was substituted, they felt a relief 
which was probably not shared by their fellow citizens. 1 

Under the alarm of the projected French invasion the militia 
in 1802 and 1803 was thoroughly reorganized and enlarged through¬ 
out the United Kingdom. The provisions (as reported by a 
Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings) regarding distraint, 
imprisonment, and the production of certificates in proof of the 
genuineness of the Quaker claim, were in substance unaltered, and 
by sect. 10 Quakers were to be marked as such in the list of men 
aged from 17 to 55 liable to the militia ballot, which was to be 
hung upon the church door in each parish. Moreover, by sect. 20, 
if any Quaker holding a parish office refused to execute the Act, 
the justices were empowered to appoint a deputy and recover his 
expenses from the Quaker up to the sum of £10. This was the 
first English Act which in set terms exempted the Quaker as such 
from personal military service. In sect. 12 amongst other exceptions, 
“ no person labouring under any infirmity rendering him incapable 
of military service, nor any person being one of the people called 
Quakers, nor any medical man practising as such and being a house¬ 
keeper, shall be liable to military service under this Act, so long 
only as they shall respectively continue in any of the descriptions 
aforesaid.” It was probably the fact of this definite recognition 
(which did not, of course, affect the claim to provide a substitute) 
that led the Meeting for Sufferings, in sending out printed copies 
of these clauses, to comment on the lenity shown and to caution 
Friends “to give great heed that any scruples maybe, and appear 
to be, the consequences of a sense of religious duty.” * 

1 Luke Howard, The Yorkshireman , iv. 352. 

a Meeting for Sufferings , 7th mo. 28, 1803. 


214 THE eighteenth century 

The Epistles of Yearly Meeting also testify that in many cases 
the authorities treated the conscientious objector with courtesy 
and consideration. Nevertheless, it was not an easy time for Friends, 
and the records frankly state that there were backsliders. Direct 
payments for war purposes were discountenanced by the general 
opinion of the Society. In 1796 the Yearly Meeting by minute 
expressed its censure on “ the active compliance of some members 
with the rate for raising men for the Navy,” and directed local 
Friends to have such cases under their care. In 1810 another warning 
was given. “It is inconsistent with our known testimony against 
war for Friends to be in any manner aiding and assisting in the 
conveyance of soldiers, their baggage, arms, ammunition, and other 
military stores.” Poverty and discontent were everywhere prevalent. 
Luddites attacked the machinery which, they believed, had robbed 
them of work, and hungry rioters terrified prosperous citizens into 
supplying them with food and drink. The Meeting in 1812 found 
that some Friends had followed their neighbours in securing armed 
protection for their property, upon which it expressed a “ tender 
concern ” that all Friends would trust in the divine protection. 
“ This Meeting further feels itself engaged to caution Friends every¬ 
where against keeping guns or arms of any kind in their houses, 
or on their premises, or in any manner uniting in armed associations, 
that so, whatever trials may take place, our Society may not by thus 
becoming liable to contribute to the destruction of their fellow 
creatures, violate our peaceable principles ; in the belief of the 
rectitude and safety of which we feel our minds increasingly 
confirmed.” 

The position was that Friends who joined the military forces, 
who manufactured munitions of war, or who armed their ships 
were considered to violate the peace testimony of the Society so 
seriously that if they persisted in their course after due remonstrance, 
disownment was the inevitable sequel. 

Those who paid taxes and fines direct, without waiting for the 
process of distraint, were deemed to have acted “ inconsistently,” 
but disciplinary measures were left to the discretion of each Monthly 
Meeting. In waiting for a distraint to be levied the Quaker was, 
as Bicknell had said, “ passive, not active ” ; often the goods taken 
were such as he could ill spare and of a greater value than the sum 
required. The records of a rural Monthly Meeting, that of Thaxted 
in Essex, during the war contain many such instances. In 1797 


IN TIME OF WAR 215 

George Gibson of Saffron Walden, for a Cavalry fine of £1, lost a 
copper boiler and meat screen worth £1 13s., and Peter Smith 
of Bardfield, for a Navy rate of 5s. 8 d. plus a charge for distraint 
of 1 os. 6d., had coals taken to the value of jC 2 13s. 9d. On another 
occasion Joshua Marks Green, also of Saffron Walden, had £20 
worth of furniture seized for a militia fine of £12 12s. 1 

Almost every year two or three young Friends were imprisoned 
on account of the militia, but it was not until Windham in 1808 
remodelled the militia, making it a training ground for the regular 
army, that the numbers became considerable. At the end of 1809 
the Meeting for Sufferings made inquiry into the cases of imprison¬ 
ment for that year. The returns were not quite complete, but 
according to them eighteen Friends and two non-members connected 
with the Society had been imprisoned for periods varying from a 
fortnight to a month, while twenty were exempted at the discretion 
of the magistrate. Some were “ very kindly treated ” during their 
confinement, but others were classed as ordinary offenders. Three 
from the London district were placed “ with felons in Horsemonger 
Lane,” and three in Wakefield gaol were put into prison dress and 
restricted to prison fare, although on application to the Deputy- 
Lieutenant this treatment was modified.* 

After their appeal on behalf of peace at the outbreak of the war 
the Society took no official action on behalf of international reconcilia¬ 
tion until 1812. In 1802, indeed, the Meeting for Sufferings had 
before it the proposal to address the King upon the Peace of Amiens, 
but in common with the rest of the nation it realized the instability 
of that settlement, and did not “ feel its way to proceed.” Ten 
years later the Meeting made an earnest appeal to the Regent on 
behalf of peace. William Allen headed the deputation, and read 
the address, to which the Prince listened “ with marked attention.” 

“ It is now many years ” (so ran the chief passage of the address) 
“ since war has been spreading its desolation over great part of the 
civilized world, and as we believe it to be an evil from which the 
spirit of the Gospel of Christ would wholly deliver the nations of 
the earth, we humbly petition thee to use the royal prerogative 
now placed in thy hands, to take such early measures for the putting 
a period to this dreadful state of devastation, as we trust the wisdom 
of thy Councils under divine direction will be enabled to follow.” 

1 List of “ Sufferings ” preserved at Saffron Walden Meeting-house. 

1 Book of Cases , iv. 


2 l6 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


The royal answer, though kindly in tone, was not encouraging, 
only “ a change in the views and conduct of the enemy ” could put 
an end to “ the calamities which necessarily attend a state of war.” 
In 1815 peace at last came to exhausted Europe, and though peace 
alone could not cure the social and political maladies of the several 
States, yet they were freed from the awful drain of life and resources 
which had sapped their strength for twenty years. When peace 
was felt to be secure, the Society of Friends, looking back over the 
past generation, summarized its experience. The Yearly Meeting, 
in the Epistle for 1819, wrote : “The continuance of the blessing 
of peace to this nation has warmed our hearts with gratitude. Our 
refusal to bear arms is not only a testimony against the violence 
and cruelty of war, but against a confidence in what is emphatically 
termed in Scripture the ‘ arm of flesh * ; it is a testimony to the 
meekness and gentleness of Christ, and a resignation to suffer, in 
reliance on the power, the goodness and the protection of the 
Almighty.” The passage was probably written not so much in allusion 
to the minor hardships of English Friends, but in remembrance of 
the providence which had watched over the members of the Society 
in Ireland. 

English Friends during the war might suffer from unpopularity 
and even occasionally from harsh treatment, but their principles 
were not put to the test of actual war In some parts of Ireland 
they were exposed to all the terrors of the Rebellion of 1798, and 
came through confirmed in their belief that faith in God manifested 
by a peaceful life and good-will towards men was a surer protection 
than any armed force. 1 The narratives of Quaker experience during 
the rebellion present many curious parallels to those of the struggle 
a hundred years earlier, although the hostilities of 1798 covered 
only a few weeks and a comparatively small area. Although through 
the exertions of Grattan’s party some of the rights of citizens had 

1 The earliest printed account is that of Dr. Hancock, Principles of Peace 
exemplified in the Conduct of the Society of Friends in Ireland during the Rebellion 
of 1798 (1825). This was compiled from manuscript narratives, but the names of 
the narrators were omitted to avoid stirring up ill feeling. The story of a single 
family is given with great vividness in Divine Protection through Extraordinary 
Dangers Experienced by Jacob and Elizabeth Goff and their family through the 
Irish Rebellion in 1798, by Dinah W. Goff, 1857. One of Hancock’s sources, 
the narrative of Joseph Haughton of Ferns, has been reprinted in full by A. M. 
Hodgkin in a little pamphlet, Friends in Ireland , published by the Friends’ Tract 
Association. The accounts are summarized by Rufus Jones, Later Periods of 
Quakerism , pp. 161-4.. 


IN TIME OF IF JR 217 

been granted to the Catholics, yet poverty, high rents, and the 
oppression of tithes all fostered discontent, and formed a fertile soil 
in which French plots could germinate. The abortive French 
expedition to Ireland in 1796 gave an opportunity for the Govern¬ 
ment to put into force stern measures of repression. In 1797 Ulster 
was almost in revolt, martial law was proclaimed through the province, 
and, while the malcontents plundered private houses for weapons, 
the soldiers in their search for arms resorted to outrage and torture. 
“ The troops,” writes a modern historian, “ were little better than 
bandits.” The trouble in Ulster was largely economic, but farther 
south it assumed the character of a Catholic movement. In Wexford 
especially the rebellion, when it actually broke out, had all the char¬ 
acteristic ferocity of a religious war. The steps taken in Ulster 
had been effective, and, with the exception of outbreaks in Antrim 
and Down, the province remained sullenly quiet ; even in Leinster, 
which was the main seat of war, the rebellion which began in May 
was crushed, as far as regular hostilities were concerned, in July, 
though guerilla bands harassed the countryside for some months. 
Friends took their own course in the troubled times before the 
rebellion, when both parties were trying to requisition all weapons. 
In 1 795 an d 1796 the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings throughout 
Ireland recommended that all Friends who had sporting guns in their 
houses should destroy them, “ to prevent ” (as the Yearly Meeting 
said in confirming the recommendation) “ their being made use of 
to the destruction of any of our fellow creatures, and more fully 
and clearly to support our peaceable and Christian testimony in these 
perilous times.” 

The Monthly Meetings appointed Committees to visit Friends 
in order to urge them to carry the suggestion. Joseph Haughton 
of Ferns, in his narrative of the rebellion, relates that he was one 
of the Committee for Wexford Monthly Meeting, and that, by 
way of first “ cleansing his own hands,” he broke his own fowling- 
piece in the street outside his door. On his visits he found that 
the majority of Friends had already destroyed their guns or were 
prepared to do so. “ There were a few who would not be prevailed 
upon to make this sacrifice, but the conduct of most of them in other 
respects was such as to occasion disownment. A short time after 
this, when the Government ordered all arms to be given up to the 
magistrates, it was a comfortable reflection and circumstance that 
in a general way Friends were found clear of having any such things 


218 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


in their possession.” 1 When the magistrates visited Haughton’s 
house for this purpose he was absent from home, but they remon¬ 
strated with his wife “on the supposed impropriety of having 
destroyed my gun instead of delivering it up to the Loyalists for 
the purpose of defending the Loyalists against the fomenters and 
plotters of rebellion and for the preservation of myself and family.” 
In fact, Friends, though generally on good terms with their neighbours 
on both sides, were suspect both by the Government authorities and 
the leaders of the rebellion. As they were known to abhor all plots 
and outrages and to profess loyalty to the throne, they were accused 
of cowardly shelter behind those who were willing to fight for the 
established Government. On the other hand, many of the Irish 
Catholics were infuriated by their steady and open attendance at 
religious worship, which they maintained in spite of all threats of 
vengeance and attempts at forced conversion. 

Irish Friends, as a body, seem to have been more horrified by 
the rebellion than by the centuries-old wrong and oppression which 
evoked it, though they faithfully recorded the atrocious and 
organized cruelty of the loyalist troops as well as the barbarity of 
the rebel Irish. The narratives from different parts of the country 
are much the same in general outline—weeks of sickening uncertainty 
and disorder, towns held first by one side and then by the other, 
indiscriminate plunder by both, and murder and massacre as a daily 
event. Yet in the midst of these horrors the Quaker households 
were wonderfully preserved. They suffered in loss of property and 
personal possessions, but comparatively little from actual violence, 
and, in spite of many threats, it was believed that no Quaker house 
was burnt or otherwise destroyed. So remarkable was their immunity, 
that Joseph Haughton noted that, after the rebellion, “ strangers 
passing the houses of Friends and seeing them preserved with 
ruins on either hand, would frequently, without knowledge of 
the district, say they were Quaker houses.” These houses were 
filled with refugees and wounded men, Protestant and Catholic, 
often with those of both parties at one time, and no threat from 
either side could induce a Quaker householder to withdraw his 
protection from these unfortunates. Abraham Shackleton of Ballitore 

1 John M. Douglas, an Irish Friend, who has studied the MS. records of 
Friends’ experiences, informs me that “ Some thirty or forty members were 
disowned for refusing to destroy their weapons. Friends were not unanimous 
on passive resistance. Some retained their weapons and were not disowned. 
Others obeyed out of loyalty to the Society.” 


IN TIME OF WAR 


219 

in Kildare, grandson and successor of Burke’s old schoolmaster, 
gave both his house and school as a refuge, and when a body of 
Protestant Militia tried to drag him with them to battle the women 
he sheltered pleaded for him. 1 

Joseph Haughton protected the Protestant servants of the 
Bishop of Ferns, gaining from him a letter of heartfelt thanks, 
while some of the United Irishmen and their families also quartered 
themselves in the house when the town was taken by the loyalists, 
“ supposing they would be more safe than in their own homes.” 

One Friend, who was living in West Meath, wrote afterwards 
of the rebel occupation : “ All those in this quarter who professed 
principles of peace were marvellously spared from extreme suffering. 
. . . Through Divine aid, and that alone, was I enabled to refuse 
to take up arms, or to take their oaths, or join them, assigning as 
a reason that I could not fight nor swear for or against them. They 
threatened, they pondered, they debated, marvelled, and ultimately 
liberated me.” Another Friend in County Kildare refused to give 
the rebels green cloth for their badges, telling them, “We could 
not join any party.” “ What,” they asked ingenuously, “ not the 
strongest ? ” In this place, when the soldiers regained possession, 
the priest tried to disguise himself in Quaker dress, while at Ennis- 
corthy a Protestant clergyman made the same attempt. At Antrim, 
on the capture of the town by the Loyalists, the soldiers began an 
indiscriminate massacre and sack, but the few Friends living there 
were spared. 3 

Joseph Haughton went through several testing times. Before 
the rebellion the Earl of Mount Nories demanded his store room 
as a guard house. Haughton felt that to plead its use as a store was 
“ a mean reason ” for refusal. “ But considering this an opportunity 
afforded me to lift up the standard of peace and bearing my testimony 
against war . . . told him . . . that the purpose he wished it for 
was such as I could not unite with, having conscientious scruple 
against war and everything connected with it. He grew very angry 
and desired the soldiers to afford me no protection in case disturbance 
arose ; to which I replied I hoped I would not trust to or apply 
for military protection.” Just before the rebellion broke out, some 

1 Shackleton and two other Friends—William Leadbeater and John Bewley— 
later mediated, between a detachment of the rebels and the loyalists, but the 
negotiations broke down over the choice of hostages. 

» Hancock, Principles of Peace , pp. 113 foil. 


220 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

suspects were arrested for not delivering up their arms. The soldiers 
determined to hang some and to apply the torture of pitch caps to 
others. Haughton’s shop contained ropes and linen, and he feared 
that under martial law a refusal to sell might endanger him, while 
he was determined not to help in the torment and execution of his 
fellow creatures. When the military applied to him, he refused, 
whereupon they forcibly requisitioned the goods, offering him money, 
which he refused to take. This refusal, Haughton adds, became 
known to the rebels, and was a source of protection to himself and 
his family when that party occupied Ferns. 

Dinah Goff was a child of fourteen at the time of the rebellion, 
the youngest of the family of a well-to-do Quaker landowner, settled 
on the estate of Horetown, in Wexford. For nearly a month they were 
surrounded by rebel encampments, and hundreds came daily to 
demand food and drink. Her vivid narrative tells how the maid¬ 
servants were at times up all night baking bread, which the rebels 
would carry off on the ends of their pikes. They tried to requisition 
the family carving-knives for weapons, but Mrs. Goff, whose courage 
never flagged, interposed and saw that they were “ carefully locked 
up after meals.” The daughters of the house were kept busy handing 
out the food demanded by these mobs, and, in return, the rebels 
at times entertained them by details of the cruelties they had com¬ 
mitted. Once, after a particularly horrible description, little Dinah 
“ could not refrain from bursting into tears, throwing down what 
I had in my hand, and running away into the house.” The Goffs 
sheltered a dozen refugees of both parties, so that the mother’s task 
was no light one. Two Roman Catholic men-servants were forced 
by the rebels to join them as pikemen. “ On my dear mother hearing 
of their having these weapons, she sent to let them know she would 
not allow anything of the kind to be brought into the house ; so 
each night they left them outside the door. They behaved quietly 
and respectfully throughout, generally returning home at the close 
of the day.” There can seldom have been a more incongruous picture 
than the bloodstained pikes leaning against the Quaker doorpost. 
Not far from Horetown was the dreadful barn of Scullabogue, in 
which on June 4th the rebels burnt alive 180 prisoners, men, women, 
and children. The smoke of the burning was seen from the house. 
Jacob Goff himself and the whole family were more than once 
threatened with instant death, though the mob were always restrained 
from actual violence. There was a general belief in Wexford, in 


IN TIME OF WAR 


221 


which Friends shared, that a certain date had been fixed for a massacre 
of the Protestants, and that only the success of the Loyalist troops 
prevented the plan from being carried into effect. 

Notwithstanding all these dangers and alarms, the elder daughters 
regularly walked to the First-day Meeting at Forrest, and were 
never molested. The father and mother were unable to go with 
them, as the family horses had been requisitioned. For the same 
cause, they could not attend Leinster Quarterly Meeting, held 
“ in usual course ” at Enniscorthy, two days after a battle had raged 
in the town. Some Friends who drove thither had to alight and 
clear the way for their horses by removing the corpses that lay 
about the streets. 1 It is easy to believe the report by the few Friends 
present, that the meeting was a solemn and heart-stirring occasion* 
Another family of Goffs, cousins of those of Horetown, were 
threatened by the rebels that unless they ceased to attend meeting 
and became Roman Catholics, they should be murdered and their 
house burnt down. The parents called their children together, 
and, after solemn prayer, laid the matter before them. The eldest 
son, a boy of seventeen, was spokesman, replying, “ Father, rejoice 
that we are found worthy to suffer.” They continued to attend 
the meeting, but the threats were never put into execution. Other 
Friends were carried off by the rebels to their camps at Vinegar Hill 
and elsewhere. There forced conversions were attempted, and 
sometimes they underwent mock trials, but in the end all were 
sent home unhurt, while their Protestant neighbours were murdered 
without mercy. Two young men, brothers of the name of Jones, 
who had some connection with the Society, were told, when they 
refused to conform to Catholicism, that if they could prove they 
were Quakers their lives would be spared. But they refused also 
to make this false claim, and died with great courage. At last, news 
came that English and Hessian troops had landed, and the Protestants 
awaited deliverance from one set of oppressors, with an apprehension 
too well justified, that they might also suffer from their helpers. 
On the 20th of June a battle was fought for some hours at Goff’s 
Bridge, close to Horetown ; the house was in the line of fire and 
cannon-balls fell thickly around it. The rebels were routed, and, 
as they fled, some turned to the Goffs to have their wounds dressed. 
Then the victors arrived, heralded by two cavalry officers. As 
Jacob Goff came out to meet them, one, a German, alighted and 
1 Journal of David Sands. 


222 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

embraced him, saying in broken English, “ You be Friend—no 
enemy—no enemy. We have Friends in Germany.” The troops 
bivouacked on the lawn that night. Next morning some thirty 
officers breakfasted with the family, “ and said that we had had 
a marvellous escape the previous day ; the cannon having been placed 
on the bridge and pointed against the house to batter it down.— 
even the match was lighted—when a gentleman who knew my 
father came forward, and told them the house was inhabited by 
a loyal Quaker and his family. They had previously supposed it 
to be a rendezvous of rebels.” The soldiers soon moved away from 
Horetown on their task of mercilessly extirpating the rebellion. 
After all open rebellion had been suppressed, vagrant hordes took 
refuge in the woods, coming out by night to plunder. Twice they 
visited Horetown, where they proved more terrifying than the 
earlier bands. On the first visit, Dinah Goff was awakened by a 
noise to find her father in the grasp of armed men. As the little 
girl looked on, they put a pistol to his head. “ Seeing his situation, 
I threw myself on my knees on the floor, and clung with my arms 
round him, when the ruffians pushed me away, saying, ‘ You’ll 
be killed if you stop there.’ But my father drew me towards him 
more closely, saying, ‘ She would rather be hurt, if I am.’ They 
snapped the pistol several times, which was perhaps not charged, 
as it did not go off.” The robbers came a second time, and, after 
plundering the house, dragged him out of doors, asking if he had 
anything to say, as his last hour was come. “ He said, he prayed 
that the Almighty might be merciful to him, and be pleased to forgive 
him his trespasses and sins, and also to forgive them, as he did 
sincerely. They said that was a good wish, and inquired if he had 
anything more to say. He requested them to be tender towards 
his wife and children ; on which they said, ‘ Good-night, Mr. Goff, 
we only wanted to rattle the mocuses out of you ’—meaning guineas.” 
The Goffs were convinced that these terrifying threats were in 
fact only an attempt to extract money, of which the household 
had by this time little enough, but there is no wonder that Jacob Goff 
returned home when the robbers left him, “ pale and exhausted,” 
saying he could not hold out much longer. He died in December 
1798, worn out by these trials, although his gallant wife survived 
him for nearly twenty years. 

Mary Leadbeater of Ballitore, sister of Abraham Shackleton, 
lived on terms of intimacy and understanding with her Irish Catholic 


IN TIME OF WAR 223 

neighbours, both rich and poor. Her Cottage Dialogues have been 
praised by high authority as a vivid picture of the Irish peasant. 
She passed through all the horrors which rebellion and coercion 
inflicted on her unhappy village with an impartial indignation at 
the cruelties of both sides. 1 In the searches for arms which preceded 
the rebellion she had seen her village friends whipped savagely to 
extract information about the hiding-places of the rebel pikes. 
“ The torture,” she commented, “ was excessive, and the victims 
were long in recovering ; and in almost every case it was applied 
fruitlessly.” When the rebels gained power, there were cruel murders 
in the village and the district. 2 The few Quaker families were 
unscathed, but the terrible scenes through which they passed left 
their impress on Mary Leadbeater’s nerves : “For many days 
afterwards I thought my food tasted of blood and at night I was 
frequently awakened by my feelings of horror.” 

The speedy triumph of the Loyalist troops brought a new series 
of atrocities. At Carlow, near by, a row of cabins to which the 
insurgents had fled, was fired by the troops, and all the inmates 
perished—the Protestant counterpart of the barn of Scullabogue. 
After Shackleton’s vain attempt at mediation the rebels fled from 
Ballitore, while the troops who occupied the village took 
vengeance on the peaceable inhabitants. Houses were plundered 
and burnt. That of the Shackletons escaped destruction, 
but soldiers burst into it demanding food and calling the 
mistress names, “ which ” (she says) “ I had never heard 
before. They said I had poisoned the milk which I gave 
them and desired me to drink some, which I did with much 
indignation.” At the same time her neighbours’ houses went up 
in flames, and she was forced to listen to disgusting boasts of the 
cruelties committed on the rebels. No wonder that in her account 
of the scene, she declared that she had never been able to retain 
a coherent picture of those dreadful hours. Later, as the troops 
withdrew, she saw a soldier flogged for killing a pig. “ Oh, how 
shocking that seemed to be ! Commanded to take the precious 
human life—punished for taking that of a brute ! ” When the 
immediate danger was over, Mary Leadbeater exerted herself on 
behalf of her humble neighbours arrested on suspicion as rebels. 

1 The story is told in her autobiography. Annals of Ballitore , pp. 221 foil. 

* Mary Leadbeater says emphatically that the rebels in their neighbourhood 
spared women and children and “ Quakers in general,” but (she adds) “ woe to 
the oppressor of the poor, the hard landlord, the severe master, or him who was 
looked upon as an enemy.” 


224 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

For one prisoner she wrote to the officers of the court-martial. 
The Court saw that the letter was from a woman, and “ women 
did not care what they said.” But the Friendly date caught the 
eye of someone ; it was from a Quaker, and “ Quakers tell the 
truth.” Mrs. Leadbeater’s plea was admitted and the suspect was 
set free. As at Horetown, for months after the rebellion, Ballitore 
was harassed by robber bands, who produced as much terror by 
their night raids as had been caused by the contending forces. 

Dublin Yearly Meeting in 1801 sent an account of the events 
of the rebellion as they affected Friends, to its sister assembly in 
Philadelphia. In this the statement was made that amidst all the 
massacre and violence of the time only one member of the Society 
lost his life. From other sources it appears that he was a youth of 
twenty from the neighbourhood of Rathangan in Kildare, who was 
panic-stricken by the approaching danger. He urged his friends 
and family to take shelter with him in Rathangan, the nearest 
garrison town, and on their refusal he fled thither himself. He 
joined the local defence corps as a dispatch rider. Later, the town 
was stormed by rebels, who found him armed with others defending 
a house, and promptly shot him. 1 One or two other Friends who 
took up arms were disowned by their Meetings. 

The Irish Government offered some compensation to those 
loyalists who had incurred heavy loss during the rebellion. A portion 
of this was offered to Jacob Goff and other Friends, but, as they 
had neither aided the army nor asked for its protection, they felt 
it would be inconsistent to accept the grant. Offers of help came 
from the Yearly Meetings of London and Philadelphia, the latter 
impelled by the remembrance of the “ generous relief ” sent by 
Irish Friends in the American War. Dublin Yearly Meeting, in 
returning grateful thanks, said that there was no need for such 
assistance. The Monthly Meetings raised nearly £4,000 to assist 
Friends rendered actually destitute, and the relief was administered 
by a committee appointed by the Yearly Meeting. The actual 
losses of these Friends were in money value £7,000, but it was 
found that the expenditure of £2,218 would set them on their feet 
again. In 1800 the surplus of the subscription was returned to the 
Monthly Meetings. Friends who had suffered loss, but still were 
able to support themselves and their families, neither asked for nor 
received any restitution. 

* The house belonged to another Friend, who was dealt with by his Monthly 
Meeting for permitting it to be put to such a use. 


CHAPTER IX 


SOME DISOWNMENTS 

1774-1815 

From the earliest times, even when there was no recognized test of 
membership, Friends had exercised the power of disownment, against 
those who cc walked disorderly.” After the Monmouth Rebellion 
it was used against those West Country Friends who had taken any 
active part in the rebellion. But the process was both less summary 
in execution and less penal in result than some historians outside 
the Society have imagined. The disowned person was no longer 
considered a member of the Society ; he could take no part in its 
business, and was thus excluded from meetings for discipline ; if 
poor he had no claim upon its charitable funds, and the machinery 
of the Society would not be put in motion to rescue him from any 
legal difficulty. But there was no check on his attendance at meetings 
for worship. There were not a few disowned Friends both in England 
and America who constantly shared in this spiritual communion, 
First Day by First Day, and who at death were laid in a Friends’ 
burial ground, where their dust now peacefully mingles with that 
of their judges. In many other cases, of course, the delinquent had 
shown by habitual absence from meeting, or by laxity of conduct, 
that he was no longer in sympathy with Friends, and in such instances 
the severance was complete. But Friends, as a rule, were not 
disowned until the matter had been long in the care first of the 
overseers, who only brought it under the notice of the Monthly 
Meeting when their private exhortations had produced no effect, 
then of the Monthly Meeting, sometimes for a period of years, 
and until they had been often visited and “ dealt with ” by a small 
delegation of members of the meeting, whose endeavours to reclaim 
the erring were patient and protracted. 1 In a small meeting the 

* This statement does not apply to some of the American meetings in the 
Revolutionary War. By them enlistment in either army or any overt assistance 
in the conduct of the war wa 3 taken as good ground for immediate dissociation. 

15 225 


226 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 

scandal and discomfort created by the expulsion of a well-known 
Friend were particularly felt, and at times the larger body of the 
Quarterly Meeting had to intervene to help the Monthly Meeting 
in its task. The final minute of disownment almost invariably 
contained a wish that the ex-Friend might be convinced of error 
and return to fellowship with the Society—a wish that was some¬ 
times fulfilled. The general history of disownment among Friends 
does not concern us here. There is no doubt that in its zeal for 
consistency the Society at times deprived itself of valued and 
spiritually minded members. But even where the stated grounds 
of disownment seem inadequate, it is generally true that the Friend 
had drifted away from his old associates. It is impossible to form 
any idea of the total number of disownments in the eighteenth 
century, nor of all the causes which led to them. 1 They lie hidden 
in the records of the many Monthly Meetings throughout the 
country, and a careful study of each minute book would be 
necessary to discover the delinquencies which Friends themselves 
showed no desire to publish further. The disowned person had the 
right of appeal to the Quarterly and thence to the Yearly Meeting, 
but it was seldom exercised. When there was an appeal it was heard 
in private by a small committee, which reported its decision to the 
Quarterly or Yearly Meeting ; and this bare fact is alone entered 
on the minutes. There is no collected record of disownments ; 
and the Quarterly Meeting answers to the queries are the only 
guide as to the districts in which from time to time trouble arose 
over any point of the discipline. Thus, as no full history of disown¬ 
ments for breaches of the peace testimony can be given, it has seemed 
best to select the story of one Monthly Meeting in North Yorkshire 
as typical of the difficulties which might beset a whole Quaker 
community, and the story of an individual disownment in Birming¬ 
ham by which the Society lost the adherence of a family of keen 
intellectual vigour. 

The repeated warnings by the Yearly Meeting against any 
concern in armed ships show that the trials of Quaker shipowners 
and captains did not diminish in the eighteenth century. It was 
in those days little part of the duty of the fleet to defend the country’s 
trade against the enemy. Merchantmen had to trust to themselves, 

1 “ Marriage by a priest,” that is, to a non-Friend, was probably that most 
frequently alleged. This disastrous policy, not amended till the middle of the 
nineteenth century, led to the severance of many young Friends from the Society. 


SOME DISOWNMENTS 


227 

and it was customary to carry at least sufficient armament to put 
up a fight against an ordinary privateer. It was seldom possible 
to man a Quaker vessel with a Quaker crew, and in war-time the 
unregenerate seaman often refused to sail on a defenceless ship. 
It was this difficulty, rather than personal fear, which led to most 
of the delinquencies recorded in the sea-board meetings. Durham, 
Yorkshire, Suffolk, Kent, Devon, Cornwall, and Bristol, all at 
various times suffered from this backsliding. It is the history of 
Whitby and Scarborough Monthly Meeting which is outlined 
here. 1 In the eighteenth century Whitby was a busy and prosperous 
port, even before the Greenland whale fishery brought it fifty years 
of wealth. Whitby men were hardy sailors, who not only carried 
on the profitable coasting trade to London, but crossed distant seas 
to strange lands. Captain Cook was a Whitby ’prentice, and his 
first voyage to the South Seas was made in a Whitby-built ship. 
The War of the Spanish Succession brought temptation to Whitby 
Friends, for in March 1713/14 the Monthly Meeting records that 
while it “ did formerly make a minute showing their dissatisfaction 
that some of our friends carried guns in their ships, which thing is 
contrary to the principle of truth, and advised them from time 
to time to put them away,” now, in time of peace, by the advice 
of the Quarterly Meeting and “ the sense and desire ” of this 
Monthly Meeting, these friends are still to be “ laboured with ” 
until they give forth a “ testimony ” against that practice. In 
conformity with this minute Joseph Linskill, a leading shipowner, 
and one of the seventeen Friends who signed this minute, published 
his own testimony. 

“ Whereas I have made profession and am in communion with 
those people who are in scorn called Quakers, whose principle and 
practice has been and is against all fighting with carnal weapons ; 
but forasmuch as I have been prevailed on by the enemy of my 
soul, and my own reasonings for self-preservation, to carry guns 
in the time of war, which did belong to a ship when I bought her 
and also in heat and passion did make use of them in order to defend 
myself with the arm of flesh, the which, when I considered it in 
coolness of mind, it became a great exercise, and having seen the 
evil consequences thereof, and in some measure tasted of the judg¬ 
ments of God ... I find it my place voluntarily, for the clearing 

1 I have to thank J. T. Sewell of Whitby, and Allan Rowntree of Scarborough, 
for supplying extracts from records and other information. 


228 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


our holy profession and all faithful professors thereof, to condemn 
that spirit which led me, and myself for being drawn into such actions, 
to wit, using guns for defence, which I am fully satisfied is contrary 
to the principles of truth. And therefore I do in great humility 
treat and warn all those of our profession who have been guilty 
of the same transgression, that if such as the late times for use of guns 
should happen again, that they take care never more to be entangled 
in that deadly snare, but trust in the Lord, the great Jehovah, in 
whom is everlasting strength, to defend and preserve us all if we 
abide faithful.” 

“ Times for use of guns ” were not to recur until, against 
Walpole’s desire, a new war with Spain broke out in 1739. In 
1742 the Yearly Meeting introduced the query on bearing arms 
and, at the instance of Bristol, followed it up in 1744 by the strong 
caution already quoted. 1 This roused the conscience of Yorkshire 
Quarterly Meeting which admitted delinquencies in 1745, reported 
in 1747 “some seafaring persons notwithstanding they have been 
advised against it continue to carry guns on their ships,” and in 1748 
found this still the case in “ one Monthly Meeting.” The matter 
dropped for a few years, but in 1756 the Quarterly Meeting reported 
that it had advised the Monthly Meeting “closely to admonish 
such to act more conformably to our profession.” The advice is 
found in the Whitby and Scarborough minute books under the 
month of April 

“Finding by your answers to the Yearly Meeting queries 
that some masters of ships professing with us in their voyages do 
carry arms for their defence contrary to our professed principles 
and that Christian frame of mind that the followers of Christ have 
walked in : therefore in the love of Truth we tenderly advise that 
such Friends be laboured with in a spirit of love to desist from such 
practices and put their trust in that arm of power that is able to 
preserve beyond any contrivance of man—and we desire they would 
weightily consider the distress of mind they bring upon their brethren 
on account of the inconsistency that appears amongst us, as many 
cannot for conscience’ sake take up arms.” 

The Monthly Meeting, however, appears to have shelved this 
letter, for the next Quarterly Meeting sent down a request that it 
might be given to the “ Masters and Chief Owners of ships,” which 
Scarborough reports has been done for all “ that are at home ” by 
1 Chapter VII, pp. 187-8. 


SOME D1S0WNMENTS 229 

October 1756 and Whitby in the following November. But in 
1 7-5 7 Yorkshire could report no reform, and the Yearly Meeting 
Epistle reiterated its advice. In 1758 Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting 
explained in reply to the query that the “ seafaring people ” who 
carry guns, do so “ without letters of Marque or being concerned 
in privateering. They have been visited in behalf of the meeting 
of several Friends, whose advice and labour with them was well 
received.” In 1760 both Lancashire and Yorkshire confessed the 
same fault, although it appears from the Whitby and Scarborough 
minute books that the Quarterly Meeting had again in April sent 
down advice against the practice. 

The Yearly Meeting was sufficiently moved to send down a 
“Written Epistle” to the subordinate meetings. This form of 
communicating advice or reproof was frequently adopted in the 
discussion of serious and confidential matters of discipline, since the 
printed Epistle had a wide general circulation. The Peace of Paris 
brought the scandal to an end for the time, but it sprang up again 
at the outbreak of the American War. In 1777 Yorkshire reported 
to the Yearly Meeting that “ some owners of ships arm them in order 
to their being employed in the Government service.” The Yearly 
Meeting’s recommendation that “ the minutes of the Meeting 
under the head of Fighting in 1693, I 73 °? anc ^ x 74 0 be read in the 
several Quarterly and Monthly Meetings and duly observed,” was 
followed by visits to all the Quarterly Meetings by representatives 
from the Yearly Meeting. Those to Yorkshire reported that “ two 
Monthly Meetings 1 are concerned in armed vessels, but our expecta¬ 
tion is that the cause of complaint would be removed as speedily 
as possible.” But in 1779 a further declension appeared, when York¬ 
shire Quarterly Meeting was “ concerned to find that some of our 
seafaring Friends not only carry guns on board their ships, but that 
some particulars are concerned in ships that have taken out letters 
of Marque, which afflicting case came weightily under the considera¬ 
tion of this Meeting, and some Friends are appointed to join the 
Friends there in visiting the parties and laying before them the 
great inconsistency of their conduct with our peaceable and benevolent 
principles.” In April 1780 these Friends were appointed (we find 
from Whitby and Scarborough minute books) to meet with Friends 
of the Monthly Meeting at Whitby, and in November the case 

1 Sic, there were two “ Particular ** Meetings, i.e. Whitby and Scarborough $ 
but possibly Hull Friends were also involved. 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTXJRT 


230 

came up of “a Friend whose vessel carried letters of Marque and 
was let for a considerable time to the East India Company.” This 
probably is the case in regard to which Yorkshire informed the 
Yearly Meeting of 1781 that “some steps have been taken, the 
other cases but very lately known. There are many others concerned, 
as owners of ships and shares of ships armed for defence, and divers 
employed as masters and mates of such vessels, to most of whom 
divers visits have been paid, by appointment of this Meeting and 
the whole is closely under our care. We request this sorrowful 
defection may also come closely under the consideration of the Yearly 
Meeting.” The Epistle responded by a reference to the advices 
of 1757. During this year the Quarterly Meeting did take, and 
inspire the Monthly Meeting to take, severe action. In February 
the Monthly Meeting received a report from the Quarterly Meeting 
Committee on the matter which gave a list of Friends concerned 
in armed vessels, of whom “ we have not sufficient grounds of hope 
that an alteration of conduct in these respects is likely at present 
to take place with any of them.” The names of fourteen Whitby 
Friends are given, including John Walker, to whom Captain Cook 
had been once apprenticed. Abel Chapman, of another well-known 
local family, was concerned in letters of Marque. In August, at 
a joint meeting of the Monthly Meeting and the Quarterly Meeting 
Committee, Thomas Scarth was disowned for sailing under letters 
of Marque, and Abel Chapman’s subscription was not to be received 
until he had disposed of his vessel. In September, Samuel Clemesha 
and T. Henderson, both of Scarborough, reported that they have 
disposed of their shares in armed vessels. It is a sign of the wide¬ 
spread nature of the defection that Samuel Clemesha was actually 
at the time Clerk to the meeting. Abel Chapman was ultimately 
disowned. In July 1782 a recommendation came down from the 
Quarterly Meeting that fifteen Scarborough and Whitby Friends 
(mentioned by name) who owned armed vessels should be debarred 
from acting in meetings for discipline, and that their subscriptions 
should not be received. In August and September the collections 
recorded in the minutes average about £1 10s. from each meeting, 
whereas for many years previously the amounts (sometimes taken 
each month, sometimes less frequently) were about £2 from 
Scarborough and £4 or £5 from Whitby—at that time a larger 
and more wealthy meeting. In April 1783 one Friend, a sea- 
captain, made acknowledgment of his fault :— 


SOME DISOWNMENTS 


231 

“ Under a due sense of my own weakness in suffering myself 
to command where guns were carried for defence, I am now con¬ 
vinced I was wrong and am in hopes that Friends will overlook 
my weakness.” In June the remaining fourteen Friends (thirteen 
from Whitby and Sarah Gott, a woman shipowner, of Scarborough) 
were disowned for “ arming their vessels in defence of their property 
although acknowledgment was made that the practice could not 
be defended from the doctrine of the New Testament.” It is 
interesting to see that the Friends who had “dealt” for six years 
with their erring brethren in the end based their disownment, not 
upon the scandal brought to the Society or upon any breach of 
“ ancient testimony,” but upon their disobedience to the teachings 
of Christianity. A strong minority, however, especially in Whitby, 
where the declension had been greatest, sympathized with the dis¬ 
owned members. One Friend who got access to the minute book 
relieved himself by the childish device of crossing out the word 
“ not ” from the foregoing minute. Possibly he was Samuel Clemesha, 
who was deposed from the office of Elder, “ having during the 
sittings of the Monthly Meeting misrepresented the conduct of 
our last.” In Whitby, John Routh, the chief schoolmaster of the 
town, and Clerk of the Preparative Meeting, refused to deal with 
the notices of his friends’ disownments, and returned them to the 
Monthly Meeting in August unread. This Meeting, which was 
held at Scarborough, found “ that the Preparative Meeting of Whitby 
is not likely at present to be held select,” under which circumstances 
it resolved not to accept any Whitby Friends as duly appointed 
representatives to the Monthly Meeting, while welcoming individuals 
who cared to attend. The difficulty, as reported to the Monthly 
meeting in October, was that Whitby Friends took the line of 
ignoring the disownments, and carried on the business of the 
meeting with the disowned members. Friends were appointed 
to visit the meeting with the aim of restoring due church order, 
but it was not until December 1784 that the Monthly Meeting 
again assembled at Whitby. A few Friends, women for the most 
part, admitted their fault and applied again for membership during 
the years immediately following the disownment. They were wel¬ 
comed back, but the Whitby Meeting, having refused to accept 
the disownments, now refused to read the new minutes of member¬ 
ship, and after some remonstrance the Monthly Meeting yielded 
the point. Even in 1786 Thomas Smailes was withholding his 


232 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 

usual subscription for the services of the Society, on account of the 
recent disownments, but eventually he “complied with the advice 
of Friends.” In the following year two or three of the disowned 
Friends gave a curious proof that they no longer considered them¬ 
selves members of the Society. In 1778 English Friends had raised 
large sums for the relief of their brethren in Pennsylvania who 
had suffered from the war (and who, incidentally, were also faced 
with the same problem of disownment). The Monthly Meeting 
had contributed nearly £250, of which Whitby’s share was ^204. 
More was subscribed than was required to meet the necessities of 
the American Friends, and when the accounts were closed in 
1787 four or five of the disowned Whitby members, who had 
learned this fact from the report of the committee of the fund, 
applied to the Monthly Meeting “ to have their share of the 
unexpended balance returned to them,” which was apparently 
done. 

One result of this period of disownment was a change in the 
area of the Monthly Meeting. Scarborough and Whitby Friends 
had become too small a body, and they were reinforced by the 
adjoining inland meetings of Pickering, Kirby Moorside, and 
Thornton-le-dale, the first-named of which gave its title to the 
new Monthly Meeting. It was as Pickering Monthly Meeting 
that Friends of the district passed through the long years of the 
French War. Traditions live long in the neighbourhood, and an 
impression still prevails that it was during this war that disownments 
for armed ships were most frequent, but this is not borne out by 
the records, which show only six or seven disownments for breaches 
of peace testimony. A considerable number are for “ immorality ” 
or “ drinking to excess.” In those days the wide moors cut off this 
little corner of Yorkshire from many civilizing influences, and these 
delinquents had no doubt found much opportunity of stumbling 
in the society which surrounded them. Of the disownments for 
war activities, some are for being 4 concerned as owners of vessels 
armed, and let out to Government to assist in carrying forward 
war,” others are against those who, after being pressed for the Navy, 
continued to serve voluntarily, “ thereby laying waste our ancient 
Christian testimony,” and there is a single case of a Friend who 
became “ a volunteer soldier.” Further north, on the confines of 
Durham and Yorkshire, the Quakers of Shields were faced with 
the same problem. There, too, some shipowners armed their vessels. 


SOME DISOWNMENTS 233 

and in consequence, after remonstrance and “dealing,” lost their 
membership in the Society. 

Perhaps the best-known instance of disownment from the Society 
in the eighteenth century is that of Samuel Galton of Birmingham 
for his concern in the manufacture of guns. It is interesting, not 
only from the position of the disowned Friend, a leading citizen 
of Birmingham, grandfather of Francis Galton, the eugenist, but 
also from the influence exercised by the Yearly Meeting upon the 
Monthly Meeting of Birmingham in its dealings with the 
delinquent. 

In the first half of the eighteenth century Joseph Farmer, a 
“convinced” Friend, carried on the business of a gunsmith at 
Birmingham ; on his death it was continued by his son James, 
and when in 1746 Mary Farmer became the wife of Samuel Galton 
of Bristol, the two brothers-in-law entered into partnership, and 
the firm of Farmer & Galton set up a large gun factory in Steel- 
house Lane, which carried out important Government contracts. 
“ But the business had much wider ramifications ; there were 
large transactions in Lisbon, and on one occasion £54,000 of slaves 
were handled in America.” 1 In the year 1790 the business was 
in the hands of the two Samuel Galtons, father and son. In that 
year the Yearly Meeting, alarmed by the war upon the Continent, 
sent a “ Written Epistle,” in addition to that usually printed, to the 
Monthly and Quarterly Meetings in comment on their answers 
to the queries. One passage runs as follows :— 

“ Some of the accounts are not quite clear, and as the ambition 
of nations is ever now slaughtering its thousands, let none amongst 
us, whose principle is peace, be employed to prepare the means. 
We have been publicly charged with some under our name fabrica¬ 
ting or selling instruments of war. We desire an inquiry may be 
made, and if any be found in a practice so inconsistent, that they 
be treated with love , but if by this unreclaimed , that they be further 
dealt with as those whom we cannot own .” This recommendation, 
of which the italicized portion was taken from an actual minute 
of Yearly Meeting, was not adopted by the Birmingham Monthly 
Meeting. The first distinct objection raised to the position of the 
Galtons was in 1792, when a collection was made towards the 
enlargement of the Bull Street Meeting-house. Joseph Robinson, 
a local Friend, then wrote to one of the committee, Joseph Gibbons, 
1 Karl Pearson, Life, Letters , and Labours of Francis Galton , p. 32. 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTXJRT 


234 

in protest against the receipt of Samuel Galton’s contribution. “ So 
many eyes are opened to scrutinize into the several branches of the 
African trade, the minutest of which are likely to be weighed and 
exposed. The supplying of the merchants trading to the coast of 
Guinea with an article likely to be very hurtful to them (the natives), 
for I cannot think they are only made a bauble of and hung up in 
their houses for ornament, and if applied to birding, being so slightly 
proved, are a kind of snare to them, but the worst of it is many of 
them are used in their wars with each other, I firmly believe. And 
for us to receive part of the thousands that have probably been a 
accumulated by a forty years’ commerce in these articles and apply 
it to the use of Friends, is, I think, a matter that requires your very 
serious consideration.” 1 

The grammatical construction of Joseph Robinson’s sentence 
leaves much to be desired, but it is clear that he made three objections 
to the Galton’s trade, these being its close connection with the slave 
trade, the poor quality of the guns, and their use in native wars. 
It seems doubtful whether Friends in general were aware of the 
Galtons’ work for the Government. Still the Monthly Meeting 
took no official action. C. D. Sturge, in the Notes just quoted, 
mentioned a tradition that “ the meeting did not actually take the 
case upon its minutes” until Bristol Half-Yearly Meeting refused 
to receive Samuel Galton as a representative. There is, however, 
no trace of this refusal. The Half-Year Meeting was a committee 
of Somertsetshire Friends for the management of charitable funds, 
but Galton, originally a Bristol man, may have had some connection 
with it. In any case the first minute (4th mo. 18, 1795) of the 
Monthly Meeting shows clearly that the matter had been already 
under discussion. “ Mention having been made at this and some 
former sittings respecting the case of Samuel Galton and Samuel 
Galton, Junior, members of this Meeting, who are in the practice 
of fabricating and selling instruments of war, concerning which 
divers opportunities have been had with the parties by several 
Friends under the direction of the overseers and others, to some 
satisfaction,” the meeting appoints three Friends to continue the 
visitation. This year the Yearly Meeting sent down a further 
written Epistle to the Quarterly Meeting expressing sorrow that in 
some places the testimony against war “ is violated in divers ways 

1 C. D. Sturge, Notes on Birmingham Friends t preserved in Bevan-Naish 
Library, Bull Street. Vide also , Hicks, Quakeriana, No. 5, July 1894. 


SOME DISOWNMENTS 235 

and sometimes for the sake of gain. We therefore desire you 
will be vigilant in your oversight over such of the family who 
may fall into these inconsistencies.” The Monthly Meeting 
continued its care, which can be traced through the minutes 
of 1795. 

In July “ it is in degree satisfactory to this Meeting to find that 
Samuel Galton, the elder, has relinquished the business and declined 
receiving any further emolument from it. The minute as far as 
respects his case is therefore discontinued,” but the Friends appointed 
are asked to pursue their dealings with Galton, the son. This minute 
was “continued” for the rest of the year, until in January 1796 
Samuel Galton himself took action. “ A letter being received from 
Samuel Galton, Junior, and read in this Meeting, the same is referred 
to further consideration.” Such consideration was given in February, 
when the appointed Friends were desired to “inform him that we 
cannot admit his arguments as substantial, and ’tis matter of real 
concern to us that he should attempt to vindicate a practice which 
we conceive to be so inconsistent with our religious principles.” 
Accordingly, the Preparative Meeting of Birmingham was directed 
not to receive his collection. Next month the Friends reported 
that Samuel Galton had informed them that “ his address was not 
intended as an attack on our principles (as some Friends had sup¬ 
posed), but he still remains of the same mind in regard to the facts 
and opinions therein expressed, and does not give Friends any assur¬ 
ance of his quitting the business.” Accordingly the meeting “declines 
to receive any further collection from him or to admit his attending 
our meetings for discipline, as a testimony of our decided disunity 
with the practice of fabricating and selling instruments of war. 
And feeling our minds impressed with a consideration of the 
desolating consequences of war, and the importance of this branch 
of our Christian testimony being supported by those in profession 
with us, we desire that the weighty advices which have at times 
been given by our Society on this subject may claim the serious 
attention of all our members, and that they will be careful, not 
only to avoid engaging in personal service and the fabrication of 
instruments of destruction, but also in any other concern whereby 
our testimony against war may not be supported.” It is not surprising 
that Friends listened to Gabon’s lengthy letter with feelings of 
distress, and that it seemed to them an attack upon their principles. 
Opinions upon the merit of the argument differ considerably. To 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


236 

one Friend (Edward Hicks in Quakeriana) it has seemed “very 
able,” and to Professor Karl Pearson “ excellent common sense.” 
But Morris Birkbeck, 1 who made manuscript annotations upon the 
copy of the letter preserved at the Friends’ Reference Library in 
London, finds the argument in one place “ corrupt and unsound,” 
in another “ illusory and inconsistent,” in another “ weak, foolish 
talk.” The best point made by Galton is the undeniable fact that 
the business had been carried on by Friends for half a century 
without any official censure. But his attitude is one of resenting 
the interference of the meeting and of determination to pursue 
his own path—a “ characteristic stubbornness ” (to quote Professor 
Pearson again) which he showed in other episodes. Nevertheless, 
he writes with a good deal of affection for the Society and for 
individual members. 

He believes (he tells the meeting) that it has entered on the 
business with reluctance and only in compliance with the Yearly 
Meeting minute of 1790. He is anxious that his letter should be 
preserved as a record for his children or future generation of “ the 
circumstances and of the motive of my conduct,” and he opens 
his defence with a series of “ Facts ” which are certainly the 
strongest part of his case. 

“ 1st. The sole and entire cause alleged for this process is that 
I am engaged in a manufactory of arms, some, of which are applicable 
to military purposes.” On this Birkbeck comments that “ the chief 
or principal part ” are “ designedly made for war.” 

“ 2nd. My grandfather—afterwards my uncle, then my father 
and uncle—and lastly my father and myself have been engaged in 
this manufactory for a period of 70 years, without having received 
any animadversion on the part of the Society. 

“ 3rd. The trade devolved on me as if it were an inheritance, 
and the whole, or nearly the whole, of the fortune which I received 
from my father was a capital invested in the manufactory ; a part 
of which consists in appropriate mills, erections, and apparatus, 
not easily assignable or convertible to other purposes. 

“ 4th. I have at various times during my carrying on the said 
business performed many acts, with the concurrence and at the 
instance of the Society, which alone would have constituted me a 
member. 

“ 5th- I have been engaged in this business from the year 1 777, 

1 1734-1816. The copy in D. is to be found in Tracts E96. 


SOME D 1 S 01 VNMENTS 237 

and it was not until the year 1790 that the minute was made upon 
which this process against me is founded. 

“ 6th. My engagements in the business were not a matter of 
choice in the first instance ; and there never has been a time when 
I would not have withdrawn from it could I have found a proper 
opportunity of transferring the concern.” 

Birkbeck notes that there were many other “ honourable and 
religious means of livelihood open, but that the opportunity for 
which the Galtons waited was that of selling “ to more profit than 
continuing the manufactory.” He does not defend the Monthly 
Meeting from the charge of negligence, but points out that the 
Minutes and Advices of the Society are frequently read in meetings, 
and that the individual is responsible for their application. “It is 
known that animadversions were made and private admonition 
given, before public labour was bestowed, which is agreeable to 
gospel order.” 

Next Gal ton, after having made clear that the censure was 
belated, passes to more dubious ground. He is convinced, he says, 
by his feelings and reason 

“ 1. That the manufacture of arms implies no approbation of 
offensive war; 

“ 2. That the degree of responsibility that has been imputed 
to that manufacture does not attach ; 

“ 3. And that in its object or its tendencies it neither promotes 
war or increases its calamities.” 

His aim in manufacturing guns is that “ which all commercial 
persons propose, viz. the acquisition of property. ... In too many 
instances firearms are employed in offensive war, yet it ought in 
candour to be considered, that they are equally applicable to the 
purposes of defensive war, to the support of the civil power, to the 
prevention of war, and to the preservation of peace.” Birkbeck 
queries : “ Is defensive war, war of any sort, consistent with 

Christianity and Friends’ principles ? . . . The distinction of 
offensive and defensive will not hold, as there can be no war without 
opposition, murder only.” 

If the argument against possible abuse forbids the “use and 
existence ” of things, it may, says Galton, be carried far. The 
farmer, the brewer, the importer and the distiller, would be 
responsible for intemperance and disease. “ Upon this principle, 
who would be innocent ? ” Such an argument shows the wide 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


238 

difference between a Samuel Galton and a John Woolman. Birkbeck 
gives some proof that the Society’s conscience was awakening on 
the matter of temperance by noting “ the enormous distilleries 
are not clear.” No reflecting person, says Galton, will contend 
that firearms have ever caused war, their manufacture is only a 
consequence of war, and even an alleviation of its horrors. “ Those 
horrid contents, since the invention of firearms, are universally 
allowed to have been less sanguinary and less ferocious.” 

This remarkable argument is endorsed by Birkbeck, with justifi¬ 
able impatience, as “ weak, foolish talk.” 

Next Galton plunges into the war and peace texts of the New 
Testament, but in this argument he feels out of his depth and declares 
that he has no wish to explain the Scriptures much less to apologize 
for offensive 'war, “ for which I profess the most decided abhorrence.” 
He returns to the argument of Quaker precedent—his own ancestry 
and other Friends who manufactured munitions of war. Birbeck 
admits that many Quakers have carried arms “ until they became 
too heavy for them.” 

Then, after a quotation from Penington in regard to defensive 
war, Galton points out the inconsistency of paying taxes and 
investing in loans, while refusing tithes. It is inconsistent, too, 
to use slave-grown products and food on which taxation is levied. 
“If you should be so conscientious as to abstain from all these 
enjoyments, I shall have no reason to complain of any partiality 
in applying the same strict construction of principle against me. 
I shall greatly admire the efficacy of your opinions, whilst I lament 
that the practice of your principles is not compatible with the situa¬ 
tion in which Providence has placed us.” The sting of these remarks 
is partly removed by the fact that for some years Friends had been 
cautioned by the Yearly Meeting against war loans, and in common 
with other Abolitionists many members of the Society did abstain 
from sugar and other slave-grown products. Galton himself does 
not wish to be taken seriously, he does not suggest an extension 
of the “ Penal code ”—“ I have too sincere a respect for the right 
and duty of private judgment, and too strong a doubt of the 
compatibility of ecclesiastical censures and punishments with the 
genuine spirit and object of Christian discipline, not to express a 
most decided disapprobation of such a measure.” On the contrary, 
he is opposed to the disownment of those who pay tithes—and 
presumably, like the “Free Quakers” of Philadelphia, to all dis- 


SOME DlSOtFNMENTS 239 

ownments. 1 His “preference” of Friends before other sects will 
not be altered by any measures that the meeting may feel it their 
duty to carry out, or which may be imposed upon it by Yearly 
Meeting. The Galton “stubbornness” breaks out again in his 
concluding remark : 

“ I mean to give no pledge or expectation to the Society with 
respect to the abandoning my business ; but to reserve to myself 
a perfect independence on that head, to act as circumstances suggest. 
So that whenever I may have an opportunity of withdrawing myself 
from those engagements consistently with my judgment, I shall 
have the satisfaction to feel that I act from spontaneous sentiment 
only, and not from unworthy influence. ... If I should be 
disowned, I shall not think that I have abandoned the Society, but 
that the Society have withdrawn themselves from their ancient 
tolerant spirit and practice.” 

In spite of this plain declaration the anxiety of Midland Friends 
to retain Samuel Galton in membership was evinced in April 1796, 
when five Friends of the Quarterly Meeting (Warwick, Leicester, 
and Rutland) were present by appointment to “ visit and assist ” 
the Monthly Meeting, and two of them agreed to join with the 
Friends already concerned in the matter in a further visit to the 
delinquent. The arrangements continued for three months, but at 
the July Meeting in Birmingham, again attended by Quarterly 
Meeting Friends, no satisfactory report could be given. They 
had had “some conversation with Galton respecting the business 
alluded to and find it remains in the same state as reported to the 
Monthly Meeting, and this meeting being painfully affected there¬ 
with, and our Friend William Lythall having expressed desire to 
see the Party on the occasion in company with some other Friends 
on the appointment, who have also expressed a willingness to see 
him again, this meeting approves thereof.” But a message from 
the Quarterly Meeting calls the “ solid attention ” of Birmingham 
Friends to a minute sent down from the late Yearly Meeting: 
“ A deficiency contained in the answer to the eighth query from the 
Quarterly Meeting of Warwickshire, Leicester, and Rutland, having 
again come under the notice of this meeting, it is earnestly recom¬ 
mended to that Quarterly Meeting that the same be brought to 
a speedy and satisfactory issue, and our testimony against war and 
fighting maintained inviolate.” 

1 Vide Chapter XV, p. 412. 


240 


THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT 


The issue came speedily enough. In August “ one of the Friends 
appointed to visit Samuel Galton, Junior, reports that on having 
further conversation with him respecting his business, he stated 
the continuance of the impracticability of his relinquishing that part 
of the concern which had given Friends uneasiness. This meeting, 
therefore, in order for the clearing of our Society from an imputation 
of a practice so inconsistent as that of fabricating instruments for 
the destruction of mankind, thinks it incumbent upon us (after 
the great labour that has been bestowed) to declare him not in unity 
with Friends, and hereby disowns him as a Member of our religious 
Society ; nevertheless we sincerely desire he may experience such 
a conviction of the rectitude of our principles and a practice corre¬ 
spondent therewith as may induce Friends to restore him again 
into unity with them.” 

As Gal ton had foretold, he disregarded the disownment and, 
with his wife, continued to attend the worship of Friends. Of 
course he could take no part in business meetings. On his death 
in 1832 he was buried in the Bull Street graveyard. In religion, 
as Professor Karl Pearson says, he was practically a Deist; he was 
a close friend of Dr. Priestley and showed his courage by offering 
him hospitality after the riots of 1791. 

In 1802—3 Galton gave up the gun business, converting it into 
a bank in 1804. In 1803 th e meeting accepted from him a donation 
towards the enlargement of the Friends’ burial-ground. 1 Possibly 
this was to ensure for his wife and himself a grave, and it may also 
have been accepted with the knowledge of his change of business. 

1 Francis Galton, p. 45. 


PART IV 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


16 


The early history of the Friends is one long record of invincible fortitude 
displayed in the presence of atrocious malevolence and unsparing ridicule. 
Theirs was a courage that the world calls passive and not active; the 
distinction is an idle one, for nobody who has seen the Friends working in 
the thick of a famine or a fever, directing the operations of the life brigade 
on a stormy sea coast or immersed in the heat and turmoil of a contested 
election, will ever doubt that they are potentially the keenest of fighters. 
—Sir George Trevelyan, The American Revolution . 




CHAPTER X 


PEACE AND WAR 

1815-99 

The end of the struggle with Napoleon left a world weary of war. 
In all the belligerent countries a heavy load of taxation pressed 
upon the citizens, and among the working classes distress was acute. 
In addition, the political reaction and continued suppression of 
popular rights disappointed idealists, who had hoped that when 
the menace of a French despotism was removed, the nations might 
have opportunity for internal reforms. These influences reinforced 
the natural horror with which humane and thoughtful men regarded 
the bloodshed and devastation of the long years of war. In England, 
at least, the sentiment in favour of peace was stronger and more wide¬ 
spread than ever before, and the opportunity arose for an organized 
movement to promote international good-will. This movement had 
its origin within the Society of Friends. In June 1814 (6th mo. 7) 
William Allen noted in his journal “ a meeting to consider of a 
new Society to spread tracts, etc., against war.” 1 

But though the meeting was held at his house in Plough Court, 
Lombard Street, and Allen was thus one of the first founders of 
the Peace Society, the idea actually originated with another Friend, 
Joseph Tregelles Price, an ironmaster of Neath Abbey. He had 
been so impressed by the considerate treatment an unarmed trading 
vessel owned by him had received from an enemy ship, that he felt 
it his duty to spread abroad the doctrines of peace which he professed.^ 
Although the formation of the Peace Society was discussed in 1814, 

1 Life of William Allen , i. 191. 

3 The vessel was a collier, the Clifton Union , bound from Neath for Falmouth. 
The French captor asked why it was unarmed. The captain replied that it 
belonged to men “ who believed that all war was forbidden by Christianity.” 
The Frenchman at once left the ship and allowed it to return home (Herald of 
Peace , 1853, p. 175, a letter from Price himself). 

243 


244 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


it was not actually established until 1816, after the final Peace of 
Paris. The original members, in number ten, were not all Friends, 
but included Churchmen and Nonconformists. 1 Its basis was 
religious (“ war is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianty and 
the true interests of mankind ”) but unsectarian, as it admitted as 
members all “ desirous of the promotion of peace on earth and 
good-will towards men.” The first American Peace Society was 
founded independently in 1815 ; in 1819, largely through the 
influence of Tregelles Price, a French Societe de Morale Chretienne 
was established, which had for one of its objects the promotion of 
peace. 

For many years the peace movement in England and, to a large 
extent, on the Continent was inspired and organized by the Peace 
Society. It met with abundant ridicule and some angry opposition, 
but its leaders, many of them Friends, persevered, doing all in 
their power, by speech, pen, and influence, to uphold their cause. 
The programme of the Peace Society from the first included the 
substitution of arbitration for war, a general reduction of armaments, 
and the institution of an International Court for the settlement 
of disputes. This is not the place to relate its history in detail, but 
Friends played an active part in the pioneer efforts towards Interna¬ 
tional Peace Congresses held between the years 1848 and 1851 
at Brussels, Paris, Frankfort, and London. 2 Tregelles Price was 
a leader of the movement till his death, and it may be said that he 
died in peace harness, for he had come to London in the cold December 
of 1854 to join in the Peace Society’s protest against the Crimean 
War. 

Thus a channel was found for the peace activities of Friends 
in co-operation with others. Their personal convictions against 
military service were not severely tried in time of peace. In 1814 
and again in 1815 it was reported to the Yearly Meeting that ten 
young Quakers were in prison for refusal to serve, but after these 
dates very few instances appear. Although Militia distraints recur 

* Among them were Thomas Clarkson, the Abolitionist, and Joseph Hall. 

* Among these Friends were Joseph Crosfield, Joseph Sturge, and Edmund 
Fry. Cobden, though not a Friend, was a leading speaker at the Congresses. 
In 1843 an International Peace Convention held in London addressed a plea for 
arbitration to all the civilized Governments, which was forwarded to each by 
deputations or through their Ambassadors. In 1844 the Massachusetts Legislature 
declared in favour of arbitration, and recommended it to the Congress of the 
United States. In 1849 Cobden introduced the proposal to the House of Commons, 
where he had seventy-nine supporters. 


PEACE AND WAR 


245 

in the pages of the Yearly Meeting records until the suspension 
of the Militia Ballot in i860, yet they are more sporadic in occurrence 
and much less serious in amount than the “ sufferings ” for Church 
rates and tithes. They mainly arose from rates levied to defray 
the expenses of the annual exercising of the militia, which was reduced 
to such small numbers that it became practically a volunteer body, 
the ballot being seldom put into force. Even when drawn, the authori¬ 
ties did not always require a Friend to provide a substitute, and if 
they thus dismissed the case, he escaped further inconvenience. 
If, however, they demanded a substitute the law of 1802-3 still 
stood, under which the propertied Quaker was distrained upon, 
and the unpropertied sent to prison for default. 1 2 

In 1846 and again in 1848, at the instance of Lord John Russell, 
the Government introduced Bills for the increase and embodiment 
of the militia. These proposals were in response to the anti-French 
agitation of the time, but on each occasion they roused so hearty 
a counter-agitation that they were hastily withdrawn. A proposed 
increase of the income tax, which was combined with the Militia 
Bill of 1848, added to its unpopularity. Large meetings of protest 
were held in the great towns ; Joseph Sturge, who had helped to 
organize that in Birmingham, received a letter from Douglas Jerrold 
promising the help of Punch and the Daily News against the war- 
fever. He added, “ the fact of an anti-war meeting taking place 
in what may be called the arsenal of England is, indeed, encouraging.” 3 
In January 1848 the Meeting for Sufferings presented the Premier 
(Russell) with a grave remonstrance on the perils of increased military 
preparations. “ We cannot but regard military preparations, even 
when undertaken by a nation on the ground of defence against 
apprehended or possible aggression, as calculated to irritate the 
inhabitants of other countries, and as therefore practically tending 
to precipitate the very events against which they profess to guard.” 
Lord John Russell received this cogent appeal in a “ kind and friendly 
manner,” but it did not deter him from introducing his Militia 

1 The British Friend, January 1846, gives a clear statement of the law. This 
paper and the Friend (both founded as monthlies in 1843) during the troublous 
years 1846-8 of Chartist agitation, contain much discussion on the consistency 
or otherwise of a Friend acting as special constable. The editorial opinion, and 
that of many correspondents was clearly favourable, but there were instances where 
Friends refused the office and were fined in consequence (British Friend, 
November 1848). 

2 Life of Joseph Sturge (H. Richard), p. 406. 


246 THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 

Bill. 1 It was in reference to the meetings in opposition to this, and 
to those a few months later in favour of his arbitration proposals, 
that Cobden wrote to Sturge : “You peace people seem to be the 
only men who have courage just now to call a public meeting. I 
always say that there is more real pluck in the ranks of the Quakers 
than in all our regiments of redcoats.” 2 The comparative ease with 
which the Militia Act of 1852 (15 & 16 Vic., c. 50) was passed, 
was due to the rise of Louis Napoleon to power, and to the sedulous 
panic-mongering by the Press and by military and naval experts. 
By the Act, Friends without property were specifically exempted 
from imprisonment. This concession, however, did not check 
their opposition to the Bill, under which 80,000 men were to be 
embodied in time of peace to be raised to 120,000 at an alarm of 
invasion. A strong petition against the Bill, drafted by the Meeting 
for Sufferings, was adopted by the Yearly Meeting. The latter 
body, in its Epistle commenting on the proposals, declared that : 
** The whole system of war is so directly at variance not only with 
the plain precepts of our Lord, but with the whole spirit of his 
gospel, that any attempt to bring under its influence those who 
are engaged in the ordinary peaceful occupations of life cannot but 
awaken painful apprehensions.” 

The Bill was passed, but the great growth of volunteer rifle 
clubs led to the official recognition of the Volunteers in 1859, while 
in the next year the Militia Ballot Act authorized the suspension 
of the ballot for one year. This Act was annually renewed by 
Parliament, by which means the compulsory powers of the Govern¬ 
ment in regard to home defence were kept in a state of suspended 
animation until the year 1916. It is characteristic of English methods 
that the Act was entitled “ An Act to amend the laws relating to 
the ballots for the Militia in England, and to suspend the making 
of lists and ballots for the Militia of the United Kingdom,” and that 
the majority of the clauses were occupied with elaborate arrangements 
for the ballot which was suspended by the remainder of the law. 
Amongst other provisions, the exemption from personal service 
granted in the Act of George III was continued to those “who 
become, or but for being Quakers, would become liable in the 
rotation for the militia. Thus the Quaker claim was again speci¬ 
fically recognized, although for fifty-six years to come England, 
with her voluntarily recruited Army and Navy and volunteer 
1 Report in British Friend March 1848. a Life of Sturge, p. 424. 


PEACE AND WAR 


247 

auxiliaries, was free from the shadow of conscription, even for home 
defence. 

The change in the legal position of Friends was partly responsible 
for the alterations in the “ war query,” during the nineteenth 
century. The query of 1792 stood unchanged (with the exception 
of the omission of the words “letters of Marque”) until 1859. 
But in that year the whole list of queries was thoroughly revised, 
and in its new form approved by the Yearly Meeting of i860 
After the legislation of the past year, it was no longer necessary 
to inquire whether Friends were concerned in the militia. The 
new query, sweeping all details on one side, recognized a general 
principle of action. “ Are Friends,” it asked, “ faithful in maintaining 
our Christian testimony against all war?” In 1875 the practice 
of requiring written answers to these queries from the subordinate 
meetings was dropped by the Yearly Meeting. Since that date they 
have been regularly read both in meetings for worship and in those 
for Church business, but they are left to the consideration of the 
individual conscience. To a newcomer into the Society there is 
perhaps nothing more impressive than the reading by the Clerk 
of the meeting of one of these queries, followed by a short pause 
for reflection and self-examination. Since 1875 the war query 
has been the eighth in order, and reads :— 

“ Are you faithful in maintaining our Christian testimony 
against all war, as inconsistent with the precepts and spirit of the 
gospel ? ” 

Thus “ the testimony against all war ” for more than fifty years 
has been accepted by the members of the Society as an accurate 
description of the Quaker attitude. 1 There have been, undoubtedly, 
in time of peace always a small number of Friends who have openly 
criticized or silently disagreed with this article of the “ Doctrine.” 
In time of war these dissentients become more articulate and are 
reinforced by others who honestly believe the war of the day to 
be one waged on their country’s side with much greater justification 

1 Dublin Yearly Meeting also adopted the revised queries. The phrase 
“ testimony against all war,” or its equivalent, had been used on many earlier 
occasions, e.g. in the Declaration of 1660, and by American Friends in the War 
of Independence. See also London Yearly Meeting Epistles, 1779, 1781, 1806, 
1809, 1839, 1861, etc. The Society’s Book of Christian Discipline in a section 
“ Peace among the Nations ” gathers together some of the most typical declarations 
of the testimony. This section was reprinted in 1915 as a pamphlet, with the 
addition of further documents issued during the war. 


248 THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


than any with which they are acquainted through the cold medium 
of history. Curiously enough, however, the line of attack on these 
occasions is not usually an appeal to the Society to abandon a 
traditional but untenable position, but an attempt to prove that the 
peace testimony is a comparatively new development, not in the 
orthodox line of Quakerism. 

Yet the most intellectual Quaker writer of the early nineteenth 
century unhesitatingly proclaimed the “ testimony ” as an integral 
part of his Society’s ethics. Jonathan Dymond’s Essays on the 
Principles of Morality won the praise of Southey and Bright, 
and still find readers and admirers. 1 Born in Exeter of an old Quaker 
family in 1796? Dymond grew into a delicate and thoughtful youth, 
something of a poet and nature-lover, who exercised his mind by 
wide reading and (after the fashion of the day) by membership of 
an Essay Society. The contest with Napoleon, which overshadowed 
his boyhood, helped to strengthen his hereditary opposition to war. 
As early as 1819 he contributed discussions on war to his Essay 
Society; in 1823 he published a more elaborate treatise, An 
Inquiry into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christi¬ 
anity and an Examination of the Philosophical Reasoning by which 
it is Defended. This brought him into some repute among his own 
religious body and the supporters of the Peace Society, of which 
he became an active member. But a severe illness in 1826 caused 
the almost complete loss of his voice, an affliction which he bore 
with exemplary patience and resolution. He worked steadily at 
his more ambitious treatise on The Principles of Morality , and at his 
death in 1828 this was left in manuscript practically complete. 
It was published in the following year, with an explanatory note 
stating that the author had been dissatisfied with existing text¬ 
books of moral philosophy, m particular with the utilitarianism of 
Paley, and had attempted to correct them by a system of morality 
based upon the revealed Will of God. 

His editor calls this a “ code of scripture ethics,” but such a 
definition is too narrow, since Dymond devotes a long chapter to 
a discussion of “ the immediate communication of the will of God,” 
or, in other words, the doctrine of the Light Within. In fact, 
consciously or unconsciously, the work is an attempt to give a logical 


„ * T ¥ ™ th e . dkion was Pushed in 1894. Bright had contributed a preface 

to the eighth nine years earlier. The Essay on War was published separately 
by the Friends Peace Committee in 1915. 


PEACE AND WAR 


249 


basis of the faith and practice of Friends. The deeper questions 
raised in philosophical and metaphysical studies are not touched, 
but the chapters range over a wide field of practical ethics. Here 
there is no need to consider the general merits of the book. Southey’s 
verdict at the time was that it had “such ability and (was) so 
excellently intended, as well as well executed, that those who 
differ most widely from some of its conclusions, must regard the 
writer with the greatest respect and look upon his early death as 
a public loss.” 1 

While Southey wrote in strong approval of the moral principles 
laid down by Dymond, he could not refrain from some gentle censure 
of the section upon political morality. A Quaker, he remarked, 
was necessarily a “ leveller,” and thus held “ political opinions which 
are not harmless when brought into action, because they strike 
at the roots of the British constitution.” Indeed, Dymond’s offence 
seems to have been that he considered the British Constitution, 
as it existed in the year 1829, was capable of further improvement. 
To the modern reader his remarks on elective monarchies, the 
advantages of a democratic Government, of an extended franchise 
and electoral reform, and on Catholic relief, are neither startling 
nor revolutionary. 

Southey criticizes these portions of the book at such length that 
he has no space to consider the chapter on war, and dismisses it with 
the comment that if the young author had lived to middle age, 
“ he might have retained his persuasion of the unlawfulness of war ; 
but he would have seen reason to be thankful that fleets and armies 
protect the British Quakers against foreign enemies, and that penal 
laws protect them against violence at home.” 3 

The chapter on war in the Principles is in substance the same 
as the earlier essay, though it is revised and amplified. Dymond 
had felt and thought deeply on the subject. He had written (in a 
private letter of the year 1826), “ I am inclined to hope that (after 

1 Quarterly Review, January 1831, pp. 83-120. 

* Southey might have found it difficult to discuss the argument, as Dymond 
had included him among a list of “ acute and enlightened men ” convinced of 
the unlawfulness of war, quoting in support the following passage from the History 
of Brazil (1810-19). “ There is but one community of Christians in the world, 

and that, unhappily, of all communities one of the smallest, enlightened enough 
to understand the prohibition of war by our Divine Master, in its plain, literal, 
and undeniable sense, and conscientious enough to obey it, subduing the very 
instinct of nature to obedience.” He might have added the familiar lines on 
“ The Battle of Blenheim ” in further testimony. 


250 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


the approaching day is passed when slavery shall be abolished) the 
attention and the labours of Friends will be more conspicuously 
and publicly directed than they have hitherto been to the question 
of war—an evil before which, in my estimation, slavery sinks into 
insignificance.” “ I doubt not ” (he added) “ that now is the time 
for anti-slavery exertion. The time will come for anti-war 
exertion.” 1 

His own clear statement of the case against war has served as 
material for much later “ anti-war exertion,” and need not be dealt 
with here at length. He summarized his arguments in a few short 
propositions, of which the two following practically cover the 
ground : 

“ That the general character of Christianity is wholly incon¬ 
gruous with war, and that its general duties are incompatible 
with it. . . . 

“ That those who have refused to engage in war, in consequence 
of their belief of its inconsistency with Christianity, have found 
that providence has protected them.” 

This latter proposition perhaps accounts for his most notable 
omission from a statement of the causes of war, in which he does 
not mention wars of liberation undertaken on behalf of an oppressed 
people, or by that people against their rulers. Already, in a chapter 
on “ Civil Obedience,” he had expressed the belief that even in such 
cases a policy of “ resolute non-compliance ” would attain the desired 
end more effectually, and at the cost of less suffering than any warlike 
measures. He was at any rate consistent, for he applied the same 
rule to the individual in his discussions of the rights of self-defence 
and of the death penalty, maintaining that though forms of coercion 
to prevent crime were lawful, yet neither the advantage of the 
individual nor the community could justify the taking of life. His 
arguments, however, were not confined to moral and religious 
considerations. In a powerful section he stated the social and political 
evils involved—the suffering, bereavement, and poverty which follow 
in the train of war. The supposed justification of war from the 
practices of the Old Testament he treated with unconcealed contempt. 
At the very outset of his work he had remarked that in questions of 
morality “an appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures is frequently made 
when the precepts of Christianity would be too rigid for our purpose. 
He who insists upon a pure morality applies to the New Testament : 

* Memoir by C. W. Dymond. 


PEACE AND WAR 


251 

he who desires a little more indulgence, defends himself by arguments 
from the Old.” This attitude is in remarakable contrast to that of 
another Friend, Joseph John Gurney, who in an almost contemporary 
account of Quakerism, is put to sore straits in the chapter on War, 1 
by his attempt to maintain at once the unchristian character of 
modern wars and the uplifting and purifying influence of those 
waged by the Jews. Dymond’s last words on war were addressed 
to those already convinced of the truth of his thesis. “ What then 
are the duties of a subject who believes that all war is incompatible 
with his religion, but whose governors engage in a war and deemand 
his service ? We answer explicitly : It is his duty mildly and 
temperately , yet firmly , to refuse to serve. Let such as these remember 
that an honourable and an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon 
their fidelity, so far as human agency is concerned, that the cause 
of peace is suspended. Let them then be willing to avow their 
opinions and to defend them. Neither let them be contented with 
words, if more than words, if suffering also, is required.” 

John Bright was an admiring student of Dymond’s book, and 
the courageous and fervid eloquence with which he opposed later 
wars drew its material to some extent from the more prosaic, though 
equally sincere utterances of his fellow Quaker. But for many 
years to come Friends, in England at least, had little opportunity 
to seal their peace principles by suffering. On the other hand, in this 
half-century, they made peculiarly their own the task of relieving 
the sufferings which war leaves behind it.* William Allen in 1822, 
on his way to plead the cause of the slave to the diplomatists 
assembled at Verona, saw at Vienna the piteous state of Greek 
refugees escaped from the “ massacre of Scio,” and other Turkish 
outrages. Returning to England, he stirred up his fellow-members ; 
the Meeting for Sufferings raised a fund of ^8,000, which was 
disbursed by competent agents among the refugees collected at 

1 J. J. Gurney, Observations on . . . the Society of Friends , 1834. Gurney’s 
arguments were probably meant as a reply not only to the rationalistic attitude 
of Elias Hicks and his followers, which led to the Separation of 1828 in America, 
but also to the views of Abraham Shackleton and other Irish Friends, for which 
they were disowned in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Shackleton’s 
difficulty “ lay in the supposed divine command . . . enjoining the children of 
Israel to wage wars of extermination against Canaanite peoples ” (R. Jones, Later 
Periods of Quakerism, p. 293). This was also a count in the charge of unsound 
teaching brought against Hannah Barnard, a visiting Friend from America, by 
some English leaders in 1802 (op. cit. 302-3). 

* This field of service was not new ; a noteworthy instance was the relief work 
of American Friends round Boston in 1775-6 (vide Chapter XV, p. 392). 


252 THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 

Trieste, Ancona, Leghorn, Odessa, Malta, Marseilles, and other 
points. 

The relief work carried out by the Society during the years of 
the Irish famine is better known to their countrymen, through 
Cobden’s eloquent tribute, 1 and its reproduction in Lord Morley’s 
Life of that statesman. Cobden argued that the courage and devotion 
displayed in war may be turned into nobler fields of social service 
and reform. 

“ A famine fell upon nearly one half of a great nation. The 
whole world hastened to contribute money and food. But a few 
courageous men left their homes in Middlesex and Surrey, and 
penetrated to the remotest glens and bogs of the west coast of the 
stricken island, to administer relief with their own hands. To say 
that they found themselves in the valley of the shadow of death 
would be but an imperfect image ; they were in the charnel house 
of a nation. Never since the fourteenth century did Pestilence, the 
gaunt handmaid of Famine, glean so rich a harvest. In the midst 
of a scene, which no field of battle ever equalled in danger, in the 
number of its slain, or the sufferings of the surviving, these brave 
men moved as calm and undismayed as though they had been in their 
own homes. The population sank so fast that the living could not 
bury the dead ; half-interred bodies protruded from the gaping 
graves ; often the wife died in the midst of her starving children, 
whilst her husband lay a festering corpse by her side. Into the 
midst of these horrors did our heroes penetrate, dragging the dead 
from the living with their own hands, raising the head of famishing 
infancy, and pouring nourishment into parched lips from which 
shot fever flames more deadly than a volley of musketry. Here was 
courage. No music strung the nerves ; no smoke obscured the 
imminent danger ; no thunder of artillery deadened the senses. 
It was cool self-possession and resolute will—calculating risk and 
heroic resignation. And who were these brave men ? To what 
gallant corps did they belong ? Were they of the horse, foot, or 
artillery force ? They were Quakers from Clapham and Kingston ! 
If you would know what heroic actions they performed, you must 
inquire from those who witnessed them. You will not find them in 
the volume of reports published by themselves—for Quakers write 
no bulletins of their victories.” 

* Political Writings of Richard Cobden , ii. 378 (1793 and 1853). Life of 
Cobden , ch. xxi. 


PEACE AND WAR 


253 

In his geographical limitations Cobden did less than justice 
to those he praised so liberally. The reports he mentioned 1 show 
that the work was carried out by a large number of English and 
Irish Friends, and are scrupulously careful to explain that their 
organization was only one branch of the measures of relief attempted 
by a conscience-stricken Government and nation. There was a 
Central Friends’ Committee in Dublin, with auxiliaries in the 
provinces, and a sister Committee in London. These bodies raised 
nearly £200,000, of which more than half came as food from 
America, not . only or mainly from Friends, though they were 
responsible for the organization of the shipments. Among the English 
Friends who personally worked at the distribution of relief in the 
stricken districts were William Forster, his son (the Education 
Minister of 1870), James Hack Tuke, and Joseph Crosfield. 
There were also, of course, many Irish Friends engaged in the 
work. Besides the immediate distribution of food, some con¬ 
structive relief was undertaken—seed corn was provided for the 
farmers and small-holders, and grants made to fishermen Who in 
their poverty had been forced to pawn their nets. 

Many Friends also worked vigorously for Free Trade and 
Franchise Reform—among them, to name only two, Joseph Sturge 
and John Bright. But, with the important exception of the anti¬ 
slavery movement, the official bodies of the Society were very 
chary of identifying it with public causes during this period. “ Study 
to be quiet ” was the advice pressed upon young and impetuous 

1 Transactions Relating to the Famine in Ireland , 1846-7 (Dublin) (see also the 
Lives of the Friends named, particularly that of James Hack Tuke, by SirE. Fry). 
The following reminiscence of Quaker experience during the abortive Rebellion 
of 1848, is contributed by J. Ernest Grubb of Carrick-on-Suir, County Waterford. 
This district was a centre of the Rebellion, and most of the Protestant inhabitants 
of the little town fled in alarm to the garrison at Waterford, to England, or even to 
America. J. Ernest Grubb, however, recalls that his father and mother remained 
with their three young children (of whom he was one) quietly at their home. 
“ My father was engaged in the iron trade and sold steel which was in considerable 
demand for making pikes. However, when the disturbances began he refused to 
sell steel of the sizes and quality needed for pikes. . . . My mother took us 
children our usual walks without hindrance ” (although the rebels under Smith 
O’Brien were encamped four miles to the north while the town and district were 
alive with soldiers, who searched every house for arms), and the family went 
regularly each Sunday the fourteen miles drive to Meeting at Clonmel. A few 
miles away, Curraghmore, the seat of the Marquis of Waterford, was guarded 
by cannon and a strong body of armed men $ the young Marquis went about 
fully armed and his beautiful wife was not allowed out of sight of the windows 
(Augustus Hare, Story of Two Noble Lives , i. 304-13). 


254 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


members. Even active work for peace was carried on through the 
channels of the Peace Society. Yet the genuine spiritual revival 
in Quakerism, after the formalism of the mid-eighteenth century, 
overflowed in many individual Friends into channels of social reform 
and international friendship. The work of John Bright is described 
in a separate chapter. Here another Friend may be taken as typical 
of the “ universal spirit ” which was beginning to stir the Society 
to new life. 

Joseph Sturge was born in 1793, of a family which had belonged 
to the Society of Friends since the days of George Fox. In 1813, 
as already mentioned, he refused militia service. Next year he 
entered the corn trade, and his firm soon became one of high standing 
in that business. In 1822 he settled in Birmingham. The abolition 
of slavery, franchise reform, free trade, temperance, the adult school 
movement were all causes into each of which he threw enough 
of his energy and resources to satisfy the conscience of any ordinary 
man. But peace and freedom were the nearest to his heart. His 
friend, the American peace advocate, Elihu Burritt, wrote of him 
that it was a happy coincidence for the people of Birmingham to 
place his memorial statue at “The Five Ways,” where Edgbaston 
and Birmingham meet, since “Freedom, Peace, Temperance, 
Charity, and Godliness were the five ways of his good and beautiful 
life.” 

In 1818 he founded, at Worcester, one of the earliest branches 
of the Peace Society, and nine years later another at Birmingham. 
In 1839 he took active part in the opposition to the Chinese War 
and to the opium traffic from which it sprang. From a visit to the 
United States in 1841 he returned a warm supporter of Jay’s proposal 
for the insertion of an arbitration clause in all treaties. For the 
next twenty years he was the soul of the Peace movement, helping 
in the conventions and congresses organized by the Peace Society, 
but more especially throwing all his personal and public influence 
into the promotion of good relations between his own countrymen 
and the peoples of the United States and France. The boundary 
disputes with the former country and the English mistrust, first 
of the Orleans dynasty and then of Louis Napoleon, made this work 
one of pressing necessity. 

Henry Richard, his biographer, wrote well of Sturge’s peace 
belief, that it was “ something far more than one of the dogmas 
of an hereditary creed. In proportion, as his own spirit was brought 


PEACE AND WAR 


255 


under the power of the gospel, did this tradition which he had 
received from the fathers deepen into a profound personal conviction. 
His belief, like that of most of those who share his views, rested 
not, as is generally but mistakenly represented, upon a literal interpre¬ 
tation of a few isolated passages of scripture, but upon what he felt 
to be an essential and irreconcilable antagonism in principle, spirit, 
and tendency between a religion of charity and brotherly love and 
the whole system of malignity and violence which war inevitably 
engenders.” 

But Sturge held his views in charity to all men. “ It is a mystery ” 
(he once wrote in a private letter to a friend) “ which I cannot 
fathom, why those who are equally anxious to act up to the directions 
and spirit of the New Testament see so differently as to what these 
require. Nothing, for instance, has surprised and grieved me more 
than to witness the views entertained by many on the subject of war, 
who, I cannot doubt, have made much further advances in the 
Christian life than I have. But it seems to be the will of Him who 
is infinite in wisdom that light upon great subjects should first arise 
and be gradually spread, through the faithfulness of individuals 
in acting up to their own convictions.” and he instanced the work 
of John Woolman against slavery. 1 

There were three occasions on which Sturge was able to take 
practical, though not in every case successful, steps to forward inter¬ 
national peace. These were : an attempted mediation between 
Denmark and the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein in 1850, the 
peace deputation to the Czar in January 1854, and the mission 
of relief to Finland at the close of the Crimean War. 

The vexed question of Schleswig-Holstein, which in 1864 
gave Bismarck his first opportunity to increase the power of Prussia, 
had led in 1848 to an attempt by the German majority in the Duchies 

1 Life of Sturge, pp. 414-15. It was during the anti-French panic of 1853 
that Cobden who, though a courageous advocate of peace, never committed himself 
to a condemnation of all war and military defence, made this interesting comment 
on the advantages and drawbacks of an alliance with the Quakers. “ The soul 
of the Peace movement is the Quaker sentiment against all war. Without the 
stubborn zeal of the Friends there could be no Peace Society and no Peace 
Conference. But the enemy takes good care to turn us all into Quakers, because 
the non-resistance principle puts us out of court as practical politicians of the 
present day. Our opponents insist on it that we wish to totally disarm, and leave 
ourselves at the mercy of Louis Napoleon and the French ; nay, they say we 
actually invite them to come and invade us ” (Letter quoted in Morley, Life of 
Cobden , ch. xxi). 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


256 

to free them from Danish sovereignty. At first supported by other 
German States, the Duchies were hard pressed after Prussia 
had concluded a separate peace with Denmark in July 1850. In 
August the Peace Congress held its sittings at Frankfort, and 
Dr. Bodenstedt of Berlin appealed to that body to urge the 
belligerents to make use of arbitration. Under the rules of its constitu¬ 
tion the Congress was unable to intervene, but Joseph Sturge, 
Frederick Wheeler (another Friend), Elihu Burritt, and Dr. 
Varrantrap, the German Secretary of the Congress, resolved to make 
the attempt as an unofficial deputation. They were received by 
representatives both of the de facto Government of the Duchies, 
and that of Denmark, and reminded them that an old treaty 
between Denmark and the Duchies made provision for the settle¬ 
ment of disputes by arbitration. In response to the suggestion “ the 
two Governments had gone so far as to appoint a sort of unofficial 
negotiator on each side ... to confer as to the character and 
constitution of the proposed court of arbitration. At that time 
Chevalier Bunsen, who was Prussian Ambassador in this country, 
told Mr. Cobden that he had a stronger hope of adjustment of the 
matter in dispute from that pacific embassy than from all that had 
been done before by the professional diplomatists of Europe.” 1 
These latter, however, interposed at the critical moment, and 
by the authority of Great Britain, France, Norway, Russia and 
Austria, the unwilling Duchies were restored to Denmark. 

The opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851 was the stimulus 
to the expression of a good deal of rather evanescent peace sentiment. 
The tried advocates of peace, however, certainly did not share the 
view that an era of unbroken good-will had set in. Had they done 
so, they would soon have been undeceived. The coup d'etat of 
December 1851 increased the popular prejudice against Louis 
Napoleon, and men like Bright and Sturge had much to do in 
combating the rising tide of fear and ill-will. Yet with startling 
suddenness the tide suddenly changed its direction. English 
politicians joined with the hated Napoleon to oppose the claims 
of Russia in the Near East. As the menace of war grew nearer, 
the thought came to Sturge that possibly the Society of Friends 
had the duty laid upon it of pleading with the Czar on behalf of 
peace. The intercourse between Alexander the First and the Quakers 
of his day might give modern Friends some right to claim a hearing ; 

1 Life of Sturge , p. 454. 


PEACE AND WAR 257 

they were known to be impartial in their advocacy, and to be inspired 
not by political but religious motives. And while public opinion 
in England was unmistakably bellicose, and it was a weary task 
to convert millions of angry and ill-informed voters, there was at 
least the chance that the individual mind of the absolute ruler might 
be more open to pacific appeals. With arguments such as these 
Sturge brought his “ concern ” before the Meeting for Sufferings, 
and on January 17, 1854, it was approved by that body in the 
following minute : “ This Meeting has been introduced into much 
religious concern in contemplating the apparent probability of war 
between some of the nations of Europe. Deeply impressed with 
the enormous amount of evil that invariably attends the prosecution 
of war, and with the utter inconsistency of all war with the spirit 
of Christianity and the precepts of its divine Founder as set forth 
in the New Testament, this meeting has concluded, under a strong 
sense of religious duty, to present an address to Nicholas, Emperor 
of Russia, on this momentous question ; and it also concludes to 
appoint Joseph Sturge, Robert Charleton, and Henry Pease to be 
the bearers of this address, and if the opportunity for so doing be 
afforded, to present the same in person. 

“ In committing this service to our dear brethren, we crave for 
them, in the prosecution of it, the help and guidance of that wisdom 
which is from above ; and we commend them, as well as the cause 
entrusted to them, to the blessing of Almighty God.” 1 

The deputation left England on the 20th of January. It was 
no light impulse which moved three men of more than middle age 
to brace all the rigours of a long journey through a northern winter 
to a country which at any moment might be at war with their own. 
When they reached St. Petersburg their personal reception was all 
that was kind and courteous. After they had held private interviews 
with Nesselrode, the Foreign Minister, and other high officials, 
the Czar and Nesselrode received them for the presentation of the 
Address.* 

1 The Times and other contemporary publications (as Kinglake, the historian 
of the war) persistently declared that this deputation was sent by the Peace Society. 
The first assertion was made in The Times of January 23rd, and though it was 
contradicted and corrected in next morning’s issue by the Secretary of the Peace 
Society, the leader-writers ignored the correction and continued to repeat the 
mis-statement. 

2 For the Address, <vide Appendix D. Cornelius Jansen, a Mennonite, 
translated and widely distributed the Address in Russia. 

l 7 


25 8 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


This was followed by a speech from Joseph Sturge, leaving 
the political question on one side, but pressing the moral and religious 
arguments against war. “ Among the multitudes who would be the 
victims in the event of a European war, the greatest sufferers would 
probably be not those who had caused the war, but innocent men 
with their wives and children.” He ended with a hearty expression 
of good-will towards the Emperor. 1 * 3 The latter seemed affected 
even to tears, and the Empress, with whom the visitors had afterwards 
a most friendly conversation, told them that this was the case. The 
three Friends were fully convinced of the Czar’s sincerity, and believed 
that he intended to make some further proposals for peace, since 
they were asked to stay a day or two beyond the date originally 
fixed for their return. But on that date (February 14th) a sudden 
chill appeared in the attitude of their Russian acquaintances. “ Nor,” 
said Charleton, “ were we at a loss to account for this change. 
The Mail from England had arrived with newspapers giving an 
account of the opening of Parliament and of the intensely warlike 
speeches in the House of Commons.”* 

The mission was loudly denounced by the war party in England. 
The Times, indeed, on February 21st, was contemptuously friendly. 
“ We must not deny to the gentlemen engaged in this piece of 
enthusiastic folly the praise of sincerity.” It was “ unfitting to 
ridicule ” their “ well-meant admonition,” even to a “ half-crazy 
monarch.” But two days later the leader-writer changed his mind, 
and poured a flood of ridicule upon the “ mischievous ” deputation. 
“Every principle,” he announced, “is mischievous which leads 
men to place reliance upon visionary hopes and feelings,” a 
condemnation which would involve most systems of religion.3 The 
deputation also gained the notice of a slighting and inaccurate page 
in Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea. But the historian’s assertion 

1 From an account by Robert Charleton quoted in the Life of Sturge. 

1 Life of Sturge, p. 480. War was declared by England on March 28, 1854. 

3 The Times was always unsympathetic to the peace cause. It even sent a special 
correspondent to Frankfort in 1850, for the purpose of turning the Peace Congress 
into ridicule, and on August 29, 1850, followed this by a leading article taunting 
the Congress with having done nothing to stop the war in Schleswig. Yet if the 
writer had known of Sturge’s attempt at mediation, he would probably have 
ridiculed it as he did in 1854. But The Times'' conversion, as regards the Crimean 
War, was comparatively rapid. “Never,” it wrote in i860, “was so great an 
effort made for so worthless an object. ... It is with no small reluctance we 
admit a gigantic effort and an infinite sacrifice, to have been made in vain ” 
(August 16, i860). 


PEACE AND WAR 


259 

that the Czar afterwards cherished a bitter grudge against his visitors, 
accusing them of misleading him about English sentiment, is 
supported by no evidence, and was certainly not borne out by the 
widowed Empress’ later intercourse with other Friends, to whom 
she mentioned the mission “ in a very different tone from what we 
should have expected had she been aware that the remembrance of 
it had driven the Emperor to the transport of wrath described by 
Mr. Kinglake.” 1 At the Yearly Meeting of 1854 Bright was 
emphatic in his approval of the enterprise. 

The two Quaker weeklies took a strong line against the war, 
and there seems to have been great unanimity in the Society in its 
condemnation. A few years before, the question had been raised 
in Yearly Meeting whether Friends could consistently supply clothing 
to the Army, when the Clerk “ gave it as the judgment of the Society 
that the supplying of such articles was clearly a violation of our 
testimony.” 2 In the winter of 1854-5 some criticisms were made 
by zealous Friends of a transaction between the War Office and 
a firm of Quaker leather merchants. The firm (C. & J. Clark 
of Street) defended their action in a letter to the British Friend .3 
They explained that, when the War Office began to take tardy 
measures for the protection of the troops against the Crimean winter, 
it tried to make a provision of sheepskin coats. An application was 
made to the Clarks, who held almost the only stock of suitable skins, 
but they refused to accept an army contract. As the winter advanced 
and the sufferings of the troops increased, a fresh appeal was made. 
This time the firm accepted the contract, but the partners determined 
to gain no advantage from it. The entire profits, about 
were used as the nucleus of a fund for a new school-building in 
the village. An anonymous Friend, indeed, wrote next month 
to the journal that the Clarks were guilty of the death of many 
Russians, since by their supplies English soldiers were kept alive 
to kill the enemy, but his logic was not echoed by his fellow members. 

In December 1854 the Meeting for Sufferings resolved to 
circulate an appeal against the continuance of the war, although, 
as the minute remarked, “at this critical juncture, and under the 
excited state of public feeling, the adoption of this course has been 

1 uf e 0 f Sturge, p. 482. For Kinglake, vide Invasion of Crimea , i. ch. xxiii. 
402, and iv. ch. ii. 46. 

» British Friend , 1851, p. 69. 

3 Ibid., January 1855. 


26 o 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


felt to be truly serious, and warranted only by a strong apprehension 
of religious duty.” Under the title : “ A Christian Appeal from the 
Society of Friends to their fellow countrymen on the present war,” 1 
about 50,000 copies were circulated. The language was uncompro¬ 
mising enough. War between Christian nations, it asserted, involved 
the adoption of a heathen standard by them. “ That which is morally 
and religiously wrong cannot be politically right.” 

Sturge had his full share of the unpopularity which fell to the 
opponents of the war. Even in Birmingham he was shouted down 
at a public meeting, and the more ignorant charged him with 
responsibility for the high price of corn. Cobden consoled him with 
the reminder that Quaker corn-merchants endured the same accusa¬ 
tion in the Napoleonic War. From across the Atlantic his friend, 
Judge Jay, wrote : “You Quakers and those who act with you 
are the real heroes of the war.” He was not deterred from doing 
what he could in the interests of peace and humanity. When the 
war ended in 1856, the standing Committee of the Peace Congress 
waited on the Prime Minister urging that the negotiators at Paris 
should include among their recommendations the settlement of 
future disputes by arbitration. With Palmerston they made little 
way, but when it was suggested that a direct appeal to the 
Plenipotentiaries might be more effective, Sturge at once agreed 
to join in a small deputation to Paris. There they found warm 
sympathy from Lord Clarendon, and unexpected support from the 
French and Prussian Plenipotentiaries. Clarendon introduced the 
question in the sittings of the Congress, when his colleagues (as 
Gladstone said later) expressed “ at least a qualified disapproval of 
a resort to war, and asserted the supremacy of reason, of justice, 
humanity, and religion.”* 

1 In D. (Tracts G 11a). 

1 Protocol No. 23. “ The Plenipotentiaries do not hesitate to express in the 
name of their Governments, the wish that States, between which any serious 
misunderstandings may arrive, should, before resorting to arms, have recourse 
so far as circumstances might allow, to the good offices of a friendly Power. The 
Plenipotentiaries hope that the Governments not represented at the Congress 
will unite in the sentiment which has inspired the wish recorded in the present 
protocol.” Another deputation, this time of Friends from the Meeting for 
Sufferings, visited all the Plenipotentiaries (excepting England, but including 
Turkey) with a plea on behalf of liberty of conscience.” They were courteously 
treated by all, but found that only Cavour had any real conception of religious 
tolerance (Report in Book of Cases , iv. 190). When Robert Charleton and two other 
Friends visited the Northern Governments on the same errand in 1858 Prince 
Gortschakoff told them frankly that the circulation of the document in Russia 


26 i 


PEACE AND WAR 

The war was over, but the sufferings caused by the war 
continued, and Sturge still had work to do. In 1854 the coast of 
Finland had been ravaged by the British fleet, to the great loss, 
and indeed ruin, of many non-combatants. Timber stores, mer¬ 
chants’ warehouses, and shipyards were burnt down, stock carried 
away from the farms, and even the fishermen’s boats and nets 
destroyed. “ One shriek of woe sounds throughout Finland,” 
wrote The Times correspondent. 1 At the time nothing could 
be done. Sir James Graham answered a Parliamentary criti¬ 
cism of the Baltic operations in true Governmental style. “ The 
officers had only obeyed their instructions and were open to no 
criticism whatever. . . . Every effort had been made to dis¬ 
tinguish between public and private property, but the difficulty 
of doing so was one of the unhappy incidents of war. ... It will 
be hard, indeed, if at the commencement of a war involving immense 
difficulties and sacrifices, it shall be related to our gallant officers 
and seamen that the first notice taken of their conduct in the 
British House of Commons partook of the character of censure.” * 

But some Englishmen did not forget the Finns. In September 
1856 Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey (one of a Quaker family 
well known in Leeds) journeyed to make inquiries on the spot. 
They found the sufferers moderate in their statements of losses, 
but still heavily straitened by them (and by a serious failure of the 
harvest), and pathetically bewildered by such action on the part of 
England, to whom they had looked with reverence as the land of 
progress and liberty. “We can’t think of the English as before,” 
said one to Sturge. A merchant told them that “ the printing by 
the British and Foreign Bible Society of the New Testament and 
the Psalms in their own language had made a deep impression on 
the Finnish people ; but after the ravages committed on the property 
of unarmed and unoffending fishermen and peasants during the war, 
the cry was, ‘ Can these be the English :—our friends ? ’ to which 

could not be allowed. On the other hand, the Danish and Swedish Governments 
were friendly, and the “ Plea ” was published at length in the leading newspapers. 
A Baptist pastor of Copenhagen told the Friends that the liberty of conscience 
existing in Denmark was largely due to the visit of J. J. Gurney and Elizabeth 
Fry in 1841, and their intercession with the King for some Baptists imprisoned 
for their religion {Life of Charleton y pp. m-31). 

1 June 23, 1854. 

a Hansard, June 29, 1854. The critic was Milner Gibson. Some naval 
commanders behaved well. Admirals Napier and Dundas later censured some of 
the wanton destruction and pillage. 


262 


THE NINETEENTH CENTXJRT 


he sometimes replied : ‘ The English who send you the Bible are 
not the same persons as the English who carry on the war.’ ” 1 The 
two Friends made careful inquiry into the real needs of the people, 
and after forming a local committee, they returned to lay the matter 
before the Meeting for Sufferings. Nearly ^9,000 was raised in 
England, chiefly by Friends, Sturge and his brother opening the fund 
with £1,000. This was expended by the local committee on food, 
clothing, the provision of seed-corn, the replacement of fishing- 
nets, and the like practical help. The Czar sent his personal thanks 
to the Mission, through Baron Nicolay, Secretary to the Embassy 
in London, but it was more grateful to Sturge and Harvey to hear 
from two younger Friends who visited Finland in 1857 that they 
found the feeling among the people much softened. Whittier 
singled out this as one of his friend’s most Christlike works in his 
memorial verses on Sturge’s death, and in some earlier lines on the 
“ Conquest of Finland.” 

Out spake the ancient Amtman, 

At the gate of Helsingfors: 

“ Why comes this ship a-spying 
In the track of England’s wars ? ” 

“ Each wasted town and hamlet 
She visits to restore; 

To roof the shattered cabin. 

And feed the starving poor. 

The sunken boats of fishers. 

The foraged beeves and grain, 

The spoil of flake and storehouse 
The good ship brings again. 

And so to Finland’s sorrow 
The sweet amend is made. 

As if the healing hand of Christ 
Upon her wounds were laid ! ” 

Then said the grey old Amtman, 
u The will of God be done! 

The battle lost by England’s hate 
By England’s love is won ! ” 

It is not strange that in 1859 the news of Joseph Sturge’s death 
spread sorrow in Finland. In these last three years of life he was 
instrumental in founding the Morning Star as a paper to spread 

1 Life of Sturge, p. 512. 


PEACE AND WAR 263 

progressive and pacific views, and in forwarding the return of Bright 
for Birmingham. Lifelong opponent of slavery as he was, he refused 
to join in a remonstrance to the United States in 1857 on the 
ground that to an American such a plea from members of a 
nation engaged in the Chinese War would seem mere hypocrisy 
and cant. His horror at the Indian Mutiny was profound, yet he 
could not regard it as an unprovoked crime. “ Had we acted,” he 
wrote, “ on Christian principles in the Government of India, even 
though we obtained much of it by robbery, the present state of things 
would not have existed, and yet the advocates of war are ready enough 
to ask the friends of peace how they would now get out of a position in 
which they would never have placed themselves.” The spirit of the 
knight-errant in forlorn causes still burned in him. He volunteered 
to the Peace Society to lead a mission of inquiry to India, to study 
on the spot the needs of the natives and our future policy. His friends 
felt that for a man of sixty-five, with shaken health, such an enterprise 
was too hazardous, and there was little probability of being allowed 
sufficient freedom of travel and intercourse to make the attempt 
profitable. 

In 1859 he resigned from the Birmingham Chamber of 
Commerce because that body petitioned for the recognition of 
Sir James Brooke’s rule in Sarawak by making the country a British 
protectorate. Sturge had denounced the sanguinary wars with Dyaks 
and Chinese by which Brooke won his power, and to him the sugges¬ 
tion seemed an encouragement of “ filibusterism and piracy.” He 
died almost without warning in May 1859, three days before the 
Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, of which he was the president:. 
At his funeral Birmingham was a city of mourning, the roads 
thronged “ in crowds amid the pouring rain ” by the working people, 
who knew him for their friend and helper. 

Few Friends had worked more untiringly for peace than Joseph 
Sturge, but his fellow members recognized such work as in harmony 
with the fundamental principles of the Society. Occasionally, indeed, 
some Friend might raise the question whether the peace policy 
was a practicable one, whether any logical limit could be put on the 
exercise of force, or whether a less sweeping condemnation of war 
might not be more effective. 1 

1 See, for example, letters by Dr. Edward Ash in the Friend of 1871-2. 
Dr. Ash had left the Society for a time, but was re-admitted after a short sojourn 
in the Church of England. His views were controverted by Robert Charleton, 
by the Editor of the Friend , and other correspondents. 


264 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


But these suggestions met with no acceptance, and whenever 
the official voice of the Society was raised in the nineteenth century 
on this subject, it maintained the old testimony. Instances have 
already been mentioned. The wars in India and China, in the early 
part of the Queen’s reign, were wholly repugnant to Friends. The 
Epistle of 1840 contained some very plain words on the unchristian 
policy of Christian nations in the East. This was followed in 1842 
by a memorial to the Queen, which, admitting the many difficulties 
connected with the administration of the Empire, nevertheless urged 
that the war might be brought to a close. The strained relations 
between England and America over the Oregon boundary question 
in 1845-6 led the Yearly Meeting to a specific recommendation 
of arbitration as a substitute for war. A deputation from the Meeting 
for Sufferings had already, in January, interviewed Peel, the Premier, 
and Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary. The former “spoke strongly 
of the Earl of Aberdeen’s peaceable policy in regard to Europe as 
well as America,” and asked whether Friends in the United States 
could not use their influence with their Government. To this the 
deputation replied that they were in correspondence. 1 

In 1848, “amidst the rumours of wars prevailing around us, 
we continue to feel the value of the testimony which has been given 
us to bear against the use of arms and against all war, defensive as 
well as offensive. But in making this declaration we are not 
unmindful of the difference between bearing this testimony in a 
season of peace and in a time of actual war or civil outbreak ! ” 
Four years later the Epistle, in protesting against the Militia Bill, 
reminded Friends of the only sure foundation for their principles. 

“ Our testimony against the bearing of arms being grounded upon 
the supreme authority of the Lord Jesus, we have had afresh to 
feel that in maintaining it, our strength and safety consist in drawing 
very near unto Him, and in seeking to live under the government 
of His Spirit.” The Crimean War, as already said, found Friends 
as a body united in opposition. “ We feel bound explicitly,” said 
the Epistle of 1854, “to avow our continued unshaken persuasion 
that all war is utterly incompatible with the plain precepts of our 
Divine Lord and Lawgiver, and with the whole spirit and tenor 
of His Gospel > and that no plea of necessity or policy, however 

* Vide also Yearly Meeting Epistles, 1834, 1839, 1840, 1847. A deputation 
from the Indiana Meeting for Sufferings memorialized Congress on the matter in 
April 1846. The account of the deputation to Peel is in the Book of Cases , iv. 169. 


265 


PEACE AND WAR 

urgent or peculiar, can avail to release either individuals or nations 
from the paramount allegiance which they owe unto Him who 
hath said Love your enemies.’ ” In 1856 the Meeting welcomed 
“ with reverent thankfulness ” the return of peace. The outbreak 
of the Continental war in 1859 was sorrowfully commented on, 
and, while the pacific course of the English Government was grate¬ 
fully recognized, the Epistle added :— 

“We cannot reflect without sorrow upon the contagious 
tendency of war, and upon the symptoms so widely prevalent of 
a spirit prompt both to take and to give offence ; which no 
professions of international amity, however sincere, can counteract. 
If war is to be prevented the spirit from which war proceeds must 
be excluded. As with individuals, so with nations, the beginnings 
of strife must be watchfully guarded against. To give occasions 
of offence or jealousy to the Governments or to the inhabitants of 
other countries, whether by imputing evil motives, by needless 
alarms of invasion, or by anything approaching to a hostile attitude, 
is inconsistent alike with Christian duty and with true patriotism. 
We ought, as Englishmen, to remember that the feelings of our 
neighbours are as sensitive and as much entitled to consideration 
as our own $ and if our words or our actions tend to irritate and 
offend them, we can hardly hope for the continuance of peace.” 

A warning to young Friends against joining the Volunteer 
Rifle Clubs (“ the object of which is to acquire dexterity and 
certainty in the destruction of human life ”) implies that some had 
done so and, in fact, the summarized replies to the queries of this 
period mention one or two instances. Friends, however, do not 
seem to have realized at first the significance of the Volunteer move¬ 
ment and of the suspension of the Militia ballot in keeping the country 
for so many years clear of the tide of Continental militarism. During 
the Civil War the Epistles (as well as those directly addressed to 
American Yearly Meetings) offer deep sympathy to American 
Friends both in the trials of war and “the unfaithfulness of their 
own members.” In December 1861, when peace between England 
and America was threatened by the Trent affair, Friends in both 
countries worked hard to maintain good relations, and English 
Friends in 1866, “opposed as we are on Christian grounds both to 
war and slavery,” welcomed the United States deliverance from both. 

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was perhaps the first to 
cause in the public mind an uneasy feeling that such bloodshed 


266 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


and destruction were out of harmony with modern civilization 
and religious thought. The Illustrated London News even expressed 
a pious hope that the military inventions of the day were fast making 
war impossible. 1 But the dreadful effectiveness of the German military 
machine soon aroused an interest in the technical details of military 
operations, and also a certain fear for the safety of England as the 
supposed “ preparedness ” of France crumbled into ruins. In reference 
to this fear the Friend in September 1870 commented on a “ panic ” 
leading article in The Times (“ we are the only unarmed people in 
the world ”) that “ the two most prepared nations of Europe are 
now those engaged in the deadliest strife.” Early in 1871 the Meeting 
for Sufferings published in the daily press and otherwise circulated 
an earnest “ Appeal ” to its fellow countrymen to discountenance 
the war spirit in their midst. 

The Society, however, was not content with mere words. 
As news came through of the sufferings and privations of non- 
combatants in the districts over which hostilities had passed, the 
heart of England was stirred to pity. Individual Friends felt the 
call to service. At the end of October 1870 Samuel J. Capper, from 
personal experience in France, endorsed the appeal (in the Daily 
News , October 21st) of the Maires of the Arrondissement of Briey, 
between Metz and Sedan, “ not for aid to enable us to destroy life, 
but for aid to maintain human life ” in their famine-stricken district. 
In the same (November) issue of the Friend appeared another appeal, 
dated October 27 th, and signed by eight Friends attending the 
Social Science Congress at Newcastle, for a fund to be raised by 
Friends and expended under the care of the Meeting for Sufferings 
for the benefit of the victims of the war. These appeals were the 
starting-point of the two funds, the “ Daily News Fund ” and the 
“Friends’ War Victims Relief Fund,” which in the next nine 
months brought untold comfort to these unhappy people. The 
Meeting for Sufferings took up the “ concern,” issuing an appeal of 
its own and appointing a committee which included John Bright and 
other Quaker members of Parliament, to arrange for the raising and 
distribution of the Relief Fund. The final Report on the adminis¬ 
tration of the fund accounted for its expenditure as follows 2 :— 

1 The war just commenced so recklessly will, perhaps, make a large contribu¬ 
tion towards permanent peace by showing that in these latter days it can only 
be prosecuted under conditions too horrible, both in their certainty and in their 
seventy, for men to accept. This is the only solace we can discover in it—namely, 
a possibility that war may die by its own hands ” (July 23, 1870). 

3 Rapport de la Repartition des Secours , by James Long, M.A. 


PEACE AND WAR 267 


Relief to Agriculturists. 


Seed com of various kinds 



Francs. 

2,611,630 

Agricultural implements 

... 

... 

82,947 

Cattle 

... 

... 

102,000 

Relief to 

Houses and furniture 

the Poor. 


13 , 75 ° 

Food,-medicine, and fuel ... 

• • • • « • 

... 

257,250 

Organization of the work for 
wages, etc. 

the unemployed, 

5 °> 5 2 5 

Gifts in 

To various localities 

Monet. 


167,625 

To 69 Communes round Paris 

... 

... 

536,375 


This relief at the current exchange in France at the time 
amounted to 4,055,071 francs, or about £162,000, and there were 
in addition large gifts of clothing. The fund was greatly helped by 
sympathizers outside the Society : as the need grew, public meetings 
were held on its behalf in many towns. About forty workers, nearly 
all Friends, were engaged for a whole or part of the period in 
organizing the relief in France, besides a number occupied at the 
London Office. 1 

1 The names of the workers in France were : Henry J. Allen, William Jones 
(later Secretary of the Peace Society), Thomas Whitwell, Robert Spence Watson 
(President of the National Liberal Federation 1890-1902), Eliot Howard, William 
Pumphrey, Daniel Hack, John Bellows, Elizabeth Ann Barclay, J. Augusta 
Fry, Richenda E. Reynolds, Amelia de Bunsen, Samuel Gurney, John Henry 
Gurney, Junior, Charles Elcock, Henry Tuke Mennell, Theodore Nield, John 
Dunning, Joseph Smith, Thomas Snowdon, Thomas D. Nicholson, Samuel J. 
Capper, Charles Wing Gray, Joseph Crosfield, Edmund Pace, William Beck, 
William B. Norcott, Walter Rigley, Ellen Jackson, Ernest Beck, William Dyne, 
James Hack Tuke (worker in the Irish Famine), James Long, John Burnett Taylor, 
Arthur Albright, Wilson Sturge, J. Fyfe Stewart. Many accounts of the work 
have been published. Besides the official Rapport presented to the French Govern¬ 
ment, mentioned above, reference may be made to the privately printed Reports 
of the Committee, to the Report to the Yearly Meeting {Proceedings of the 
Yearly Meeting , 1871), articles by Henry Tuke Mennell in the Friend, 
January-September 1871, three contemporary publications by relief workers j 
S. J. Capper, Wanderings in War Time ; Spence Watson, The Villages round Metz ; 
John Bellows,' The Track of the War round Metz ; also William Jones, Quaker Cam¬ 
paigns in Peace and War, 1899, aQ d P. Corder, Life of Robert Spence-Watson, 
ch. iv j also reminiscences in the Friends' Quarterly Examiner by two of the 
workers (Eliot Howard in 1913 and H. T. Mennell in 1915). The official cer¬ 
tificate, granted as credentials to each worker on behalf of the Yearly Meeting, 
described Friends as believing “ all war to be contrary to the will and spirit of our 
Heavenly Father as shown in the New Testament, but moved by Christian love 
we desire to alleviate, as far as may be in our power, the misery of non-combatants 
irrespective of nationalities—remembering that all are children of one Father, and 
that one Saviour died for all.” 


268 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


The first two workers, William Jones and Henry J. Allen, 
on their way to investigate the conditions in the devastated area, 
were advised by the British Minister at Brussels to adopt some 
distinguishing device other than the Red Cross brassard, which had 
for the moment been discredited by unauthorized use. Their choice 
fell upon a red and black star, which, as badge and brassard, has 
ever since been the device of the Friends’ War Victims Relief organiza¬ 
tions in different wars, and has become known in many scenes of 
misery. 

The scope of the work may be gathered from the financial 
statement already quoted, and it has been described at length in the 
books and papers mentioned in the note on the preceding page. 
At first, in its strict neutrality, the Committee offered relief to the 
German villages in the Saar Valley, which had suffered severely 
from the passage and quartering of troops, and to some extent from 
actual hostilities. The offer, however, was politely declined by the 
authorities, and the Commissioners found from a visit that German 
organizations had supplied all the help required. The case of France 
was, of course, far otherwise. An arrangement was made with the 
Daily News and other relief funds by which overlapping was as 
far as possible avoided, and the Commissioners started work in the 
wide district round Metz, which had been the scene of some of the 
bloodiest battles of the opening campaign, had supported vast hordes 
of the soldiers of both armies, and much of which, after the fall of 
Metz, was administered by the Germans as a conquered province. 
Here, in many cases, the villages had been dependent upon their 
conquerors for food, and when the army moved on, they were left 
utterly destitute. To these unhappy people the Friends brought 
regular supplies of food, medical treatment, and supplies, fuel for the 
winter, and later on—what was almost more valuable as a provision 
of present work, hope for the future, and the means of life—ample 
stocks of seed-corn and the steam ploughs with which to prepare 
the ground. In the early spring, when the Loire district was clear 
of the contending armies, work was begun there. There the long 
hostilities had resulted in the almost entire destruction of crops 
and farm stock. The chief work of the Friends was the provision 
of seed-corn and milch-cattle. Of the latter, several hundred of 
good quality with bulls, calves, and goats were purchased by James 
Long in Spain, and apportioned among the various Communes, 
the authorities of which agreed to maintain in perpetuity cattle, 


PEACE AND WAR 269 

to the number granted, for the benefit of the inhabitants. These 
“ Quakers ” (as the cattle were branded) supplied an urgent need. 1 
As soon as the armistice was signed and it was possible to reach Paris, 
a deputation proceeded thither to investigate the needs of the sur¬ 
rounding district. After conferences with the local authorities 
and the representatives of other relief societies, it was arranged that 
the whole of the relief in the Department of the Seine, outside Paris 
and St. Denis, should be undertaken by the Friends. The district 
and its needs was thus described by one of the investigators :— 

“The Department forms a narrow belt or girdle round Paris 
varying in width from two to six miles. It embraces all the district 
which has been actually desolated by the operations of the siege, 
and its condition is a most deplorable one. The suburban district 
immediately outside the walls of Paris has not greatly suffered by 
actual bombardment; but the inhabitants having been compelled to 
leave it during the siege, it has been occupied by the French Mobiles, 
who have completely wrecked it, tearing up the floors and all the 
woodwork of the houses for firewood, and inflicting every possible 
injury and damage upon it. Outside this belt are the villages 
occupied by the advanced posts of either army, and the space between 
them, which was untenable by either. In this zone there is nothing 
but ruin and desolation ; a sadder scene of destruction it is impossible 
to imagine. Outside this belt are the villages held by the Prussian 
Army, which have suffered severely and are greatly injured, but not 
to the same extent as those which I have described.” 2 

On March 3rd, the day of the Prussian occupation of Paris, 
three Friends, Joseph Crosfield, Robert Spence Watson, and Ernest 
Beck, left London to administer the relief, joining W. B. Norcott, 
who had remained in Paris to secure offices and make preliminary 
arrangements. By these friends and others who followed them 
(including James Hack Tuke, who brought with him the experience 
gained in the Irish Famine), the sum of £20,000, a quantity of 
clothing, and a grant of £1,000 of vegetable seeds from the 
Mansion House Fund, were distributed among 62 Communes 
containing about 300,000 inhabitants. Yet the Committee, in 
reporting this relief to the Yearly Meeting, spoke of it as but “a 
drop in the bucket,” in comparison with the immense losses of the 
people. 

1 Friend, February 1871. 

1 Ibid., March 1871 (H. T. Mennell). 


270 


THE NINETEENTH CENTXJRT 


The work in all the districts was carried on at no inconsiderable 
risk to the Commissioners. More than one, on leaving England, 
was told by men just returned from the scene of hostilities that 
nothing could be done in regions infested with francs-tireurs and 
robbers without the protection of pistols. Yet no Friend travelled 
armed. At first they were constantly suspected of being French 
or German spies, and had uncomfortable experiences in consequence, 
but they soon won the confidence of the authorities on both sides. 
Round Metz their greatest enemy was the pestilential air from 
the battle-fields. Here many workers were laid aside by illness. 
Five suffered from small-pox, of whom one, Ellen Allen, died. 

In Paris those workers who remained until the outbreak of the 
Communists also suffered considerable risk. Indeed, the mere routine 
work of investigation and relief in a devastated country under military 
occupation in mid-winter was no light or easy task. From both 
Government and people there was a warm expression of gratitude : 
decorations were pressed on individual Friends, which they steadily 
refused. Finally the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce sent 
the following letter, in November 1871, to the official representatives 
of the Society of Friends :— 

“Je suis autorise par Monsieur le President de la Republique 
et par la Conseil des Ministres, k transmettre k la Societe Anglaise 
dts Amis Pexpression des sentiments du peuple et du Gouvernement 
Fran^ais. Puisse le souvenir de notre profonde reconnaisance vivre 
chtz vous aussi longtemps que vivra chez nous le souvenir de vos 
genereux efforts.” 1 

At the close of the war some other Friends engaged earnestly 
in Christian mission work in Paris and other parts of France. This 
led to the establishment of a mission for women and girls under 
Justine Dalencourt, a French Catholic who had been brought into 
touch with Friends while a refugee in London and later joined the 
Society. She is still continuing her work. The miseries they saw 
burnt in upon many of the workers a personal and intimate horror 
of war and its accompaniments. “ How the remembrance ” (wrote 
William Jones of the villages round Metz) “ of homes like this in 
which happiness will never again be known on this side of the grave 

1 Quoted by William Jones, Quaker Campaigns, p. 83. The Society was also 
gratefully mentioned in the Journal Officiel of the French Republic, and the Journal 
Mensuel of the Society of Agriculture. In 1873 Robert Spence Watson was 
unexpectedly presented by the French Government with a gold medal specially 
struck in recognition of his “ eminent services.” 


PEACE AND W.AR 


271 


crowds on the mind, and utterly tarnishes and blots out all that men 
call glory in successful war, and leaves behind nought but its cold 
reality in the unspeakable misery and sorrow of its wretched victims.” 1 

In a similar strain Spence Watson wrote home : 

“ I wish I could tell you how I loathe this war. It is too horrible. 
The misery which it brings with it is altogether incredible. I begin 
now to dream of it all night, for it has become a terrible reality. 
Bad I always thought it, but I never dreamed that it could be so bad. 
I am glad I have seen what I have ; it is a great lesson, and I wish 
all the editors in England could just see Bazaine’s army ; we should 
hear less of the glory of war for some years to come.” 2 

In 1876 two of the Commissioners, James Long and William 
Jones, were sent out again by Friends to distribute relief, this time 
to Bulgaria and Macedonia, to the scenes of the atrocious massacres 
and cruelties which led to the intervention of Russia and the libera¬ 
tion of so much of the Balkans from the Turkish yoke. In 1892 
other Friends, one of them, John Bellows, also a former Commissioner, 
devoted themselves to the relief of the famine-stricken districts of 
Russia, distributing a fund of £40,000. At the end of the century 
Russia again claimed their interest. The accounts of the persecuted 
Doukhobors brought to England by Tolstoyans perhaps over¬ 
emphasized that sect’s points of resemblance to F riends ; the latter, 
however, particularly interested by the Doukhobors’ refusal of 
military service, took up their cause warmly. It was largely through 
the financial help and organization of a Committee of Friends, that 
seven thousand of the sect were transported to Canada in the autumn 
of 1899 ; and other Friends, particularly women teachers, helped 
them through the first difficulties of their settlement in communal 
villages there .3 

The Czar’s call of the Governments of the civilized world to 
a Hague Conference to consider the reduction of armaments and 
the establishment of an International Court of Arbitration, was 
warmly welcomed by Friends. The Yearly Meeting of 1899 sent 
a deputation to The Hague with a message of congratulation and 

* William Jones, Quaker Campaigns , etc., p. 93. 

* Corder, Life of Spence Watson , p. 104, quoted from The Villages around 
Metz,. 

3 The Committee at first hoped to settle the Doukhobors in Cyprus, but the 
island proved an unsuitable home, and the thousand who reached it eventually 
were removed to Canada. Vide Aylmer Maude, A Peculiar People—The 
Doukhobors. 


272 THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 

prayerful good wishes to the various Ambassadors assembled there. 
But soon these hopes of a brighter dawn for the coming century 
were overshadowed by the Transvaal War. 

Apart from these activities, the last thirty years of the nineteenth 
century were not marked by any new departure in the peace work 
of the Society, unless the revival of the National Peace Congress 
as an annual event, in which many Friends assisted, may be thus 
described. In 1877 and again in 1885 the Yearly Meeting Epistle 
expressed the thankfulness of Friends that threatened wars between 
England and Russia had been averted, and in 1884 it recorded their 
sorrow and distress at the bloodshed which has taken place in 
Egypt and the Soudan in the course of the last two years.” When 
in 1897 English sympathizers began to work for the relief and 
protection of the Armenians, Friends joined heartily in the effort, 
in which they continue to take an active part. But the Epistle of 
that year rejected the plea that war in this case was the only remedy. 

‘ Our sympathy with the persecuted and oppressed in Armenia, 
Crete, and elsewhere, does not lessen our conviction that even on 
their behalf it is wrong to take the sword, and that all war, defensive 
as well as offensive, is incompatible with true loyalty to the Prince 
of Peace. Such a declaration might seem to be an easy one, made 
at the expense of others, but as the nineteenth century closed, it was 
repeated in the midst of a war in which England was involved. 

We fail to see” (was the declaration of the Yearly Meeting of 
1900) “how any war can be waged in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” 


CHAPTER XI 


JOHN BRIGHT 

We feel that Mr. Bright is entitled to a higher eulogy than any that could 
be due to intellect or any that could be due to success. Of mere success 
he was indeed a conspicuous example; in intellect he may lay claim to a 
most distinguished place; but the character of the man lay deeper than 
his intellect, deeper than his eloquence, deeper than anything that can be 
described or seen on the surface, and the supreme eulogy which is his due 
I apprehend to be this, that he elevated political life to a higher elevation 
and a loftier standard, and that he has thereby bequeathed to his country 
the character of a statesman which can be made the subject not only of 
admiration and not only of gratitude, but of reverential contemplation. 
—Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, March 29, 1889. 

After the year 1756, when the Quaker deputies retired from the 
Assembly of Pennsylvania, for almost a century the Society of Friends 
had little representation in the political world. It is true that the 
agitation against the slave trade, both in England and America, 
originated among the Quakers, but their interest in it was primarily 
philanthropic, and the actual political leadership of the movement 
was in other hands. William Penn and John Bright—the list of 
Quaker statesmen is short but noteworthy. Of the two it is the 
modern Friend for whom the higher place must be claimed, on the 
ground of a complete and consistent life. He was not like Penn, 
the ruler of a great territory or the adviser of a king, but his empire 
was in the hearts of the working people, and his highest reward 
was their unbounded trust in him. Palmerston could say, during 
the Crimean War fever, that he did not “reckon Cobden, Bright 
and Co. for anything,” and in 1859 the Queen refused a suggestion 
that Bright should be given a Privy Councillorship on the ground 
that “ it would be impossible to allege any service Mr. Bright has 
rendered ”—this fourteen years after the Repeal of the Corn Laws ! 
Yet in the Home Rule crisis of 1886-7 ^ 1S influence, more even 

18 273 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


274 

than his arguments, told heavily against the Government. “ Every 
word,” wrote Lord Morley, “seemed to weigh a pound.” 1 

This is not the place in which to sketch once more Bright’s 
career, the touching and romantic comradeship with Cobden in 
so many righteous causes, the struggle for the enfranchisement 
of the people, the attacks on privilege and tyranny. But his work 
for peace was so much a part of his life that biographical detail will 
occasionally be necessary. First, it may be well to clear up a 
misunderstanding. It has been hinted by some that although Bright 
was a Quaker by birth and upbringing, he was not in full sympathy 
with the views of Friends. Nothing could be less true. Throughout 
his life he faithfully attended Friends’ Meetings for worship, and 
took at times an active part in their Meetings for business. His 
household worship of “reading” and “silence” impressed Lord 
Morley with its purity and fervour. Yet Bright felt himself a lack 
of power to give public utterance to his deepest spiritual experience. 
In 1875, at the age of sixty-four, he refused to take up the office of 
Elder, on these grounds : “ The labours of my life have taken me out 
of the way of service for our little Church, and have, to a large extent, 
unfitted me for it. I feel that there is nothing above the humblest 
office—shall I say that of dqorkeeper ?—which I could properly 
undertake. ... I feel humbled by the proposition made to me, 
and that I am so far from the state in which it would or might seem 
possible for me to consider it.” 2 

“ He always remained a Friend both in his heart and in his life,” 
writes Mr. Trevelyan ,3 basing his verdict on the testimony of those 
nearest to Bright. Yet it is true that at the opening of his political 
career he was regarded with some distrust by elderly and conservative 
Friends, who, influenced by a tradition from the old days of revolu¬ 
tion and conspiracy in which the Society suffered unjust persecution, 
shrank from any form of political activity. Mrs. Boyce, in Records 
of a Quaker Family ,4 describes how Bright’s defence of himself and 
the Anti-Corn Law League from a veiled censure in the Yearly 
Meeting of 1843 was rewarded by “ a slight tapping noise ” from 
those quiet benches as he resumed his seat. Surely this gentle applause, 

* Morley, Life of Gladstone , ii. 582. 

* No doubt Bright’s words carry an allusion to Psalm lxxxiv, but in the 
larger Friends* Meetings there are actual “ doorkeepers.” 

3 Life of John Bright , p. 414. 

4 The Richardsons of Cleveland. 


JOHN BRIGHT 2?5 

against all Quaker precedent, was the greatest triumph of John 
Bright’s golden oratory. 

Of late years, when the great peace advocate is no longer here 
to answer for himself, some critics have gone further and have tried 
to prove that his opposition to war would have given way before the 
circumstances of some particular war (waged since his death), and 
that he would have supported and approved the arbitrament of force 
m such a case. In this argument they rely on the admitted feet that 
Bright carefully and explicitly met the advocates of each war on 
their own ground, and showed that even on their principles it was 
to be condemned. As was said once, he always argued the question 
on a Blue-book basis. * In two instances, as will be seen, he admitted 
that on those principles one party to the struggle was justified in 
meeting war by war, but even so he was unsparing in his condemna¬ 
tion of the crimes and errors which had plunged the combatants 
into so terrible a catastrophe. 

However honestly he believed that his opposition was confined 
to the cricumstances of each case, there is scarcely a speech in which 
his personal abhorrence to war is not manifest, and more than once 
he alludes specifically to the principles of Friends. For example, 
at a Peace Conference in Manchester in the year 1853, in a remark¬ 
able passage, he distinguished his personal convictions upon war 
from the arguments, political and economic, which he employed in 
public controversy. 

“ I shall not read the Sermon on the Mount to men who do 
not acknowledge its authority, nor shall I insist on my reading of 
the New Testament to men who take a different view of it; nor 
shall I ask the members of a Church whose Articles especially justify 
the bearing of arms to join in any movement which shall be founded 
upon what are called abstract Christian peace doctrines. But I will 
argue this question on the ground which our opponents admit, which 
not professing Christians only, but Mahomedans and heathen and 
every man of intelligence and common sense and common 
humanity will admit. I will argue it upon this ground, that war 
is probably the greatest of all human calamities.” * 

Again, in his great speech in the House of Commons on the 
declaration of war against Russia (March 31, 1854) he declines 
to discuss the war, “ on the abstract principle of peace at any price, 

1 Friend ’ 1889, p. 101. 

* Report of Conference in the Herald of Peace , February 1853, p. 182. 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


276 

as it is termed, which is held by a small minority of persons in this 
country, founded on religious opinions which are not generally 
received.” Many years later, at Manchester (October 2, 1876), 
he definitely attributed his opposition to the Crimean War to his 
Quaker upbringing. 

“ I do not know why I differed from other people so much, 
but sometimes I have thought it happened from the education I 
had received in the religious sect with which I am connected. We 
have no creed which monarchs and statesmen and high priests have 
written out for us. Our creed, so far as we comprehend it, comes 
pure and direct from the New Testament. We have no 37th Article 
to declare that it is lawful for Christian men, at the command of 
the civil magistrate, to wear weapons and to serve in wars—which 
means, of course, and was intended to mean, that it is lawful for 
Christian men to engage in any part of the world, in any cause, 
at the command of a monarch, or of a prime minister, or of a 
Parliament, or of a commander-in-chief, in the slaughter of his 
fellow-men, whom he might never have seen before and from whom 
he had not received the smallest injury, and against whom he had 
no reason to feel the smallest touch of anger or resentment. Now, 
my having been brought up as I was would lead me naturally to 
think that . . . the war with Russia in the Crimea was a matter 
that required very distinct evidence to show that it was lawful, or 
that it was in any way politic or reasonable.” 

In the great speech for peace at Edinburgh, in October 1853, 
Bright defined war in no uncertain terms. 

“ What is war ? I believe that half the people that talk about 
war have not the slightest idea of what it is. In a short sentence 
it may be summed up to be the combination and concentration of 
all the horrors, crimes, and sufferings of which human nature is 
capable.” 

In 1879 a Mr. Urquhart of Manchester was moved by Bright’s 
strenuous opposition to the war policy of the Conservative Govern¬ 
ment to write to him with the question whether he was prepared 
to condemn all war and abolish all means of military defence. Bright 
made the following reply 1 :— 

“ I have not time to write fully upon the question. It is one 
on which men should make up their minds as to their own personal 
duty. So far men have defended war as if it were a natural condition 
1 Public Letters , p. 238. 


JOHN BRIGHT ^ 11 

of things which must always continue. It might be true that war 
could not always be avoided, and that in some cases it might be 
justifiable, and yet, granting this, it might be shown that nineteen 
out of every twenty wars which have been waged ought to have been 
avoided, and were criminal in the highest degree. I believe that 
all our wars since the time and accession of William III might have 
been avoided on principles which do not require the absolute 
condemnation of war in every possible case that may be suggested 
or imagined. We need not discuss the question as you put it. We 
shall change the policy and the aspect of our country and of the 
world, if we leave the demon of war to the cases in which there 
seems to Christian and rational men no escape from the miseries 
he inflicts upon mankind. I would advise you not to trouble yourself 
with the abstract question. The practical question is the one which 
presses, and when we have settled that, there will remain very little 
of the mischief to contend about or to get rid of. If you wish to 
know the best argument against war, I would recommend you 
to read Jonathan Dymond’s Essays on the Principles of Morality , 
or his Essay on War.” 

The recommendation of Dymond’s uncompromisingly Quaker 
Essay shows plainly where Bright’s own opinion rested, in spite of 
the careful phrasing of the letter . 1 A few months before, at Man¬ 
chester , 2 he had described the essentially unchristian character of 
war in language which may have inspired Mr. Urquhart’s question. 

“We may differ upon many points of Articles in Churches, 
but we are all agreed on this : that if there be anything definite 

1 In 1885 Bright contributed a short introduction to Dymond’s Essay, which 
included some of the strongest phrases from his own utterances. “ I think (he 
wrote) every man must make up his own mind on that abstract [Quaker] principle, 
and I would recommend him, if he wants to know a book that says a good deal 
about it, to study the New Testament, and make up his mind from that source. 
... If we may presume to ask ourselves what, in the eye of the Supreme Ruler, 
is the greatest crime which His creatures commit, I think we may almost with 
certainty conclude that it is the crime of war.” The one specific case in which 
Bright thought arbitration impossible was that of the issue between the Turkish 
Government of 1876 and its persecuted Christian dependencies (speech at 
Birmingham, December 4, 1876). 

“ I do not in any case, as you know, stand forward as a defender of those 
sanguinary struggles which continually or at times take place among the nations j 
but I know not how in some cases they are to be avoided. There can be no arbitra¬ 
tion unless the parties to the dispute are willing. There can be no arbitration 
between a Government such as that which reigns at Constantinople and the suffering 
peoples of whom we have lately heard so much.” 

* April 30, 1878, Robertson, Life of John Bright, ii. 20r. 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


278 

and distinct in the teachings of the New Testament, it is that which 
would lead to amity among people and to love and justice and mercy 
and peace on the whole of God’s earth upon which His sun shines. 
If then we are agreed upon this, let us, if it be possible to throw off 
the hypocrite in this matter—let us get rid of our Christianity, or 
get rid of our tendency and willingness to go to war. War is a game 
which, if their subjects were wise, kings would not be able to play 
at; and be they kings or queens, be they statesmen of this or that 
colour or party, never let any man go headlong into any policy that 
points direct for war until he has thoroughly examined the question 
by his own best intellect, brought it to bear on his own Christian 
conscience, and decided it for himself as if he were asked to pull 
the trigger or to use the sword.” 

Such was the careful and considered language of John Bright, 
both in the maturity of his political life and in later years. It is 
impossible to resist the conclusion that his opponents were right 
in their belief that his opposition to war was primarily based on moral 
and religious convictions, though they were wholly wrong in seizing 
upon this fact as an excuse for neglecting the weighty political 
arguments which he marshalled against each war or project of war 
in its turn. 

A brief account of these particular episodes must complete this 
study of Bright as a man of peace. He won his spurs as an orator 
in scenes which fitly illustrate the favourite thesis of Friends, that 
peace is an active virtue different in quality from the passiveness 
of non-resistance, and that wrong may be effectively resisted without 
resort to physical force. The struggle against Church rates in 
Rochdale was only the preliminary to the greater struggle against 
the Corn Laws. And it must not be forgotten that both in the Corn 
Law agitation and in the longer agitation, not yet ended, for reform 
of the franchise and the land laws, Bright was attacking evils which 
he believed in each case to be largely the result of our last great 
Continental war. 

“ The knowledge of what that war had meant to the mass of 
the people while it lasted, and the legacy of misery and degradation 
that it left behind, was burnt into the soul of Bright, and reinforced 
by its modern example the faith of his peace-loving forefathers. 
His view of the unnecessary character of the war begun in 1793 
may be wrong—or it may be right; but his grasp on the fact that 
war, though sometimes sport to the rich, is always death to the 


JOHN BRIGHT 279 

poor, was to stand England in good stead in coming years.” 1 The 
repeal of the Corn Laws and the introduction of Free Trade was 
at once the triumph and the justification of the peaceful agitation 
of the League with its weapons of argument and persuasion. Later 
generations have forgotten the strong tide of discontent and disorder 
which surged through the working classes during the thirty years 
of misery and hunger after Waterloo, finding vent in the abortive 
Chartist Movement and in many serious local riots. It was the 
considered judgment of careful observers that England’s immunity 
from the revolutionary upheaval which shook down the continental 
thrones in the year 1848 was very largely due to the improvement 
in the condition and temper of the people brought about by Free 
Trade. 

The next campaign of Bright and Cobden was one in which, in¬ 
stead of acting as the leaders of strong and enthusiastic forces, they 
were more and more isolated in what was, at the time, a losing battle. 
It was no thanks to Palmerston that England was not continuously 
at war during the two decades before his death in 1865. In his 
spirited foreign policy he employed a dual method, treating all 
strong Powers as our natural enemies, to be met by large armaments 
and bullying diplomacy, and the weaker Powers as our natural 
inferiors, to be reformed and scolded and generally set in their proper 
places. This intervention and admonition was often on behalf of 
the oppressed (although they seldom gained much benefit from 
their champion), but sometimes, as in the famous case of Don Pacifico 
and the mischievous Chinese War of 1857, for less worthy objects. 

In the great Don Pacifico debate of June 1850 Bright did not 
speak, giving way to Cobden, but he had to defend even his vote 
against a nominally Liberal and really Whig Government to his 
Manchester constituents, which he did on the grounds that 
Palmerston’s policy “ necessarily leads to irritation, and to quarrels 
with other nations, and may lead even to war ; and that it involves 
the necessity of maintaining greater armaments and a heavier 
taxation.” * Next year, when Kossuth visited England, Bright, 
while joining warmly in the popular welcome, made clear his distrust 
of any movement for intervention abroad. He wrote to Cobden 
(November 4, 1851) : “I am expected to be at the meeting 
in the Free Trade Hall [Manchester] and to speak. I am in a 
desperate puzzle what to do, but certainly if I speak I shall go against 
* Trevelyan, Life, p. 47. » Trevelyan, Life, p. 192. 


28 o 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


any notion of fighting for Hungary or any other country. ... I 
am very apprehensive that this Hungarian sympathy will breed 
a spirit which we have hoped was subsiding, and will tend to fill 
the people’s heart with pride and self-conceit, and with a notion 
that it is our mission to become knight-errants in the cause of freedom 
to other nations, whilst we are forgetting how much we have to 
do at home.” In his speech (November ii, 1851) he emphasized 
the moral force of public opinion as opposed to the material pressure 
of armaments. “ There are men who say : ‘ Why, what is the use 
of your sympathy if you have no regiments and no ships ? Well, 
I shall take another line of argument, and ask you whether there 
be any force in opinion, in opinion acting upon the nation. Why, 
let me ask you where are you assembled ? Recollect when this hall 
was built, recollect by whom it was built, recollect from this platform 
and this hall went forth the voices which generated opinion in 
England, which concentrated it, which gathered it little by little, 
until it became a power before which huge majorities in both Houses 
of Parliament became impotent minorities—and the most august 
and powerful aristocracy of the world had to succumb, and finally, 
through that opinion we struck down for ever the most gigantic 
tyranny that was ever practised.” 1 

But the star of Lord Palmerston was in the ascendant. In 
1852, dismissed from office by the influence of the Court, he 
regained power by the defeat of Lord John Russell’s Militia Bill, 
and at the beginning of 1853 there broke out one of those mysterious 
“ panics ”—or agitations for larger armaments—which attack the 
political world with, apparently, the same periodicity as those which 
shake the financial world. An ill-defined distrust of Napoleon III, 
which Palmerston shared with a large number of his countrymen, 
blossomed, under careful nurture by Press and politicians, into a 
full-blown “invasion” panic. Cobden and Bright used all the 
resources of eloquence and satire to show the baseless nature of 
such fears, and Bright described the disastrous results of a war between 
two great and civilized nations, undeterred by the readiness of his 
enemies to declare that he judged all things by the touchstone of 
commercial interest. 

“ I draw no picture,” he said,2 “ of blood and crime, of battles 
by sea and land ; they are common to every war, and nature 

1 Robertson, Life y ii. 10, 11. 

2 Manchester, January 27, 1853, Robertson, ii. 14. 


JOHN BRIGHT 281 

shudders at the enormities of man ; but I see before me a vast 
commerce collapsed, a mighty industry paralysed, and a people 
impoverished and exhausted, with ever-increasing burdens and a 
gathering discontent.” 

In the autumn he repeated the picture : “ War will brutalize 
our people, increase our taxes, destroy our industry, postpone the 
promised Parliamentary reform, it may be many years.”* But the 
threatened war of October 1853 was not the threatened war of the 
previous January. France was no longer the enemy waiting to 
invade our coasts, but the ally with whom we were to rescue the 
helpless Turk from Russian intrigue. At Edinburgh in that month 
a Peace Congress was held at which Admiral Sir Charles Napier 
vigorously expressed the views of the war party. Bright’s reply 
has become a classic, which may be read with profit to-day. In it 
he alluded to the objection that the time was inopportune to speak 
of peace. 

“ The right time to oppose the errors and prejudices of the 
people never comes in the eyes of those writers in the public Press 
who pander to those prejudices. They say : ‘ We must not do so-and- 
so, we shall embarrass the Government.’ . . . We wish to protest 
against the maintenance of great armaments in time of peace. We 
wish to protest against the spirit which is not only willing for war, 
but eager for war ; and we wish to protest, with all the emphasis 
of which we are capable, against the mischievous policy pursued 
so long by this country of interfering with the internal affairs of 
other countries, and thereby leading to disputes, and often to 
disastrous wars.” 

The peroration of the speech was an appeal to the moral sense 
of his countrymen. 

“ ... You profess to be a Christian nation. You make it 
your boast even—though boasting is somewhat out of place in such 
questions—you make it your boast that you are a Protestant people, 
and that you draw your rule of doctrine and practice as from a 
well pure and undefiled, from the living oracles of God and from the 
direct revelation of the Omnipotent. . . . 

" Is this a reality ? or is your Christianity a romance ? is your 
profession a dream ? No, I am sure that your Christianity is not 
a romance, and I am equally sure that your profession is not a 

1 Letter to a public meeting at the Manchester Athenaeum, October 6, 1853, 
Robertson, ii. 27. 


282 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


dream. It is because I believe this that I appeal to you with 
confidence and that I have hope and faith in the future. I believe 
that we shall see, and at no very distant time, sound economic 
principles spreading much more widely amongst the people ; a sense 
of justice growing up in a soil which hitherto has been deemed 
unfruitful ; and which will be better than all—the Churches of 
the United Kingdom—the Churches of Britain awaking, as it 
were, from their slumbers, and girding their loins to more glorious 
work, when they shall not only accept and believe in the prophecy, 
but labour earnestly for its fulfilment, that there shall come a 
time—a blessed time—a time that shall last for ever—when ‘ nation 
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more.’ ” 

The hope at the moment was doomed to disappointment, for 
the Churches gave no help to the small, but weighty minority 
which opposed the Crimean War.* Bright and Cobden were left 
almost alone, branded as traitors and refused a hearing in the country, 
though never in the House of Commons. The eloquence of Bright’s 
speeches and letters upon the war was even then frankly admitted, 
and few are now prepared to controvert his arguments, but eloquence 
and reason could not save him from execration and defeat. As Mr. 
Gladstone 2 finely said of him, at that crisis he laid his popularity 
as a sacrifice upon the altar of his duty. The chapters upon the 
war in Mr. Trevelyan’s Life deal fully with the political side of 
his opposition. Here there is only space for some quotations which 

* Years later (Birmingham, January 13, 1878), Bright diagnosed the war- 
fever of the nation. “At that time the public mind was filled with falsehoods, 
and it was in a state which we might describe by saying that it became almost 
drunk with passion. With regard to Russia, you recollect, many of you, what 
was said of her power, of her designs, of the despotism which ruled in Russia, 
of the danger which hung over all the freedom of all the countries of Europe. 
And the error was not confined to a particular class. It spread from the cottage 
to all classes above, and it did not even spare those who were within the precincts 
of the throne. It was not adopted by the clergy of the Church of England only, 
but by the ministers of the Nonconformist bodies also. The poison had spread 
everywhere. The delusion was all-pervading. The mischief seemed universal, 
and, as I know to my cost, it was scarcely worth while to utter an argument 
or bring forth a fact against it.” Many, of course, recognized the folly and futility 
of the war, but had not the courage to be unpopular. Walter, proprietor of 
The Time s , said to Bright: “ When the country would go to war, it was not worth 
while to oppose it, hurting themselves, and doing no good.” Sir James Graham 
said m later years : “ You were entirely right about the Crimean War : we were 
entirely wrong. 

* At Birmingham, June 1, 1877. 


JOHN BRIGHT 283 

characteristically reveal the moral impulse which urged him to 
that opposition. It is true that, as Mr. Trevelyan says, Bright 
definitely claimed to oppose the war as “ contrary to the national 
interests and the principles professed and avowed by the nation, 
and on no other ground,” 1 but it is equally true that his opponents 
disregarded the claim, and branded him as a ** peace-at-any-price ” 
man. Their policy was unfair in itself, and cowardly, inasmuch 
as on this plea they escaped the necessity of answering his unanswer¬ 
able attacks, but their instinctive feeling that whole moral continents 
divided his view of any war from theirs was well founded. Even 
Palmerston’s ill-bred taunt to “ the honourable and reverend 
gentleman ” serves to remind us of the moral indignation which 
linked Bright’s speeches with the utterances of the Hebrew prophets. 
As Dr. Johnson’s old friend confided to him that he had tried in his 
time to be a philosopher, but “ cheerfulness was always breaking 
in,” so we may say of Bright’s speeches that he tried to be a poli¬ 
tician, but Christianity was always breaking in. In the very speech 
(March 31, 1854) in which he claimed to discuss the war on ad¬ 
mitted principles of English policy are two passages which reveal the 
distance which separated him from many of his countrymen. He had 
sympathy, he said, for the oppressed everywhere, “ but it is not on 
a question of sympathy that I dare involve this country, or any country, 
in a war which must cost an incalculable amount of treasure and of 
blood. It is not my duty to make this country the knight-errant 
of the human race.” And, as was his wont, he translated the cost of 
war into terms of individual and national happiness—a calculation 
which, half a century later, would have drawn upon him the name 
of “ Little Englander.” 

“ . . I believe if this country, seventy years ago, had adopted the 
principle of non-intervention in every case where her interests were 
not directly and obviously assailed, that she would have been saved 
from much of the pauperism and brutal crimes by which our Govern¬ 
ment and people have alike been disgraced. This country might 
have been a garden, every dwelling might have been of marble, 
and every person who treads its soil might have been sufficiently 
educated. We should, indeed, have had less of military glory. We 
might have had neither Trafalgar nor Waterloo ; but we should 
have set the high example of a Christian nation, free in its institutions, 
courteous and just in its policy towards all foreign States, and 
1 Letter to Joseph Sturge, September 1857. 


284 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

resting its policy on the unchangeable foundation of Christian 
morality.” 

The famous peroration of December 22, 1854, opening : 
“ I am not, nor did I ever pretend, to be a statesman,” closes with 
the hope of maintaining “ to the last moment of my existence the 
priceless consolation that no word of mine has tended to promote 
the squandering of my country’s treasure, or the spilling of one 
single drop of my country’s blood.” Palmerston and his followers 
were ready enough to label such an aspiration as “ peace-at-any- 
price.” Part of the price of war Bright described in his grave rebuke 
to Palmerston in debate on the Vote of Censure in July 1855 : 
“ The noble Lord seems to me to be insensible to the fact that 
clouds are gathering round the horizon of this country ; he appears 
not to know that his policy is the doom of death to thousands upon 
thousands, carrying desolation to millions of hearts. He may perchance 
never see that which comes often to my vision:—the interminable 
ghastly procession of our slaughtered countrymen, to which every 
day fresh lists of victims are added.” 

It was this sense of the desolation and destruction of war, far 
more than any pain arising from isolation or misunderstanding, 
that finally broke down Bright’s strength and endurance and with¬ 
drew him, in 1856, from public life. He had in especial measure 
the emotion Wordsworth describes as, 

Due abhorrence of their guilt 
For whose dire ends tears flow and blood is spilt. 

While he was seeking health in Italy, there came in February 1857 
the dramatic overthrow of Palmerston by Cobden’s Vote of Censure 
on the Chinese War. But at the General Election Palmerston 
swept the country on a wave of Jingoism, and every member of 
the “ Manchester ”—or peace—party lost his seat. Bright heard 
at Florence that he was placed at the foot of the poll in Manchester, 
on the express ground of his opposition to the Crimean and Chinese 
Wars. In the wise and courageous letter which he sent to Cobden 1 
he made two prophecies, both fulfilled even more rapidly than he 
foretold. 

“ Ten years hence, those who live so long may see a complete 
change on the questions on which the public mind has recently 
been so active and so much mistaken. . . . We have taught what 

1 April 10, 1857. 


JOHN BRIGHT 285 

was true in our ‘ School,’ but the discipline was a little too severe 
for the scholars. Disraeli will say he was right; we are hardly of 
the English type, and success, political and personal success, cannot 
afford to reject the use which may be made of ignorance and prejudice 
among a people. This is his doctrine and, with his views, it is 
true ; but, as we did not seek for personal objects, it is not true 
of us. If we are rejected for peace and for truth, we stand higher 
before the world and for the future than if we mingled with the 
patient mediocrities which compose the present Cabinet.” 

In August 1857 a movement was set on foot among Birmingham 
Radicals to secure Bright for their vacant seat. The one question 
in doubt was his attitude to the Indian Mutiny, news of which 
was just then filling England with horror and panic. An urgent 
telegram to Scotland received a satisfactory reply, which he 
expanded in his election address. In the latter (August 8, 1857) 
he said :— 

“ The success of the insurrection would involve anarchy in 
India unless some great man, emerging from the chaos, should 
build up a new empire based on and defended by military power. 
I am not prepared to defend the steps by which England has obtained 
dominion in the East but, looking to the interests of India and of 
England, I cannot oppose such measures as may be deemed necessary 
to suppress the existing disorder. To restore order to India is mercy 
to India, but heavy will be the guilt of our countrymen should we 
neglect hereafter any measures which would contribute to the welfare 
of its hundred millions of population. I hope the acts of the Govern¬ 
ment will be free from that vindictive and sanguinary spirit which 
is shown in many of the letters which appear in the newspapers, 
and that when the present crisis is over, all that exists of statesman¬ 
ship in England will combine to work what good is possible out 
of so much evil.” 

To this position he steadily adhered. As Mr. Trevelyan com¬ 
ments, his Quaker training freed him from the colour prejudice 
so deeply rooted amongst Englishmen, and he condemned in unsparing 
terms the blind passion of revenge which found vent in barbaric 
acts in India and wild words at home. Some Friends felt that this 
pronouncement was a surrender to the war spirit, and it was to meet 
their objection that Bright wrote to Joseph Sturge (in the letter 
already quoted). 

“ Does our friend Southall think our Government should rest 


286 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


quiet and allow every Englishman in India to be murdered ? I 
don’t think so. They must act on their principles, seeing they admit 
no others. I have never advocated the extreme non-resistance 
principle in public or in private. I don’t know whether I would 
logically maintain it.” But whether Bright exposed himself to 
criticism from pacifist or from militarist, Birmingham welcomed 
him gladly and returned him unopposed, even though for some months 
more he could take no active part in politics. It was not until the 
autumn of 1858 that he was able to deliver the first of his great 
addresses to his constituents, which were to be the pride and delight 
of the city for many years to come. This speech on foreign policy, 
made on October 29th, is throughout entirely characteristic in its 
moral fervour, its passionate earnestness, and its touches of homely 
humour. In the opening sentences he met the charge of want of 
patriotism. 

“ How, indeed, can I, any more than any of you, be un-English 
and anti-national ? Was I not born upon the same soil ? Do I not 
come of the same English stock ? ” and, after a scathing description 
of the confused policy which led to our past wars for the balance 
of power ” and of the tangle of treaties which still hampered our 
international relations, he uttered the magnificent apologia for his 
own attitude, which, familiar as it is, must be quoted once more 
here. 

“ I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation except 
it be based upon morality. I do not care for military greatness or 
military renown. I care for the condition of the people among 
whom I live. There is no man in England who is less likely to speak 
irreverently of the Crown and Monarchy of England than I am ; 
but crowns, coronets, mitres, military display, the pomp of war, 
wide colonies and a huge Empire, are, in my view, all trifles, light 
as air, and not worth considering, unless with them you can have 
a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the great 
body of the people. . . . 

“ I have not, as you have observed, pleaded that this country 
should remain without adequate and scientific means of defence. 
I acknowledge it to be the duty of your statesmen, acting upon 
the known opinions and principles of ninety-nine out of every 
hundred persons in the country, at all times, with all possible 
moderation, but with all possible efficiency to take steps which 
shall preserve order within and on the confines of your kingdom. 


JOHN BRIGHT 287 

But I shall repudiate and denounce the expenditure of every shilling, 
the engagement of every man, the employment of every ship, which 
has no object but intermeddling in the affairs of other countries, 
and endeavouring to extend the boundaries of an Empire which 
is already large enough to satisfy the greatest ambition, and I fear 
is much too large for the highest statesmanship to which any man 
has yet attained.” 

It was in this very speech that Bright emphasized the solemn 
sense of responsibility which should weigh upon all political orators, 
and it is surely his right that this careful statement of his peace 
position should be accepted at its full value. 

In the next summer Bright would only give his support to the 
Palmerston-Russell Government, then in process of formation, 
in return for a pledge of non-intervention in the war raging in 
Northern Italy. Russell gave it readily, for, as he said, the chief 
fear was lest distrust of Napoleon III should lead us to intervene 
on the Austrian side, and his and Palmerston’s Italian sympathies 
were directed to the preservation of an attitude of benevolent 
neutrality. This was the first-fruits of Bright’s teaching, a greater 
triumph was secured when we remained at peace through the 
American and Danish Wars, and by that time we had learnt the 
lesson sufficiently well to pass through the Austro-Prussian and 
Franco-Prussian Wars without a hint that our interests were 
involved or our intervention necessary. 

Yet distrust of the Emperor of the French swept Palmerston 
and the hotter heads of the nation into a “ French panic” in the 
years 1859 to 1861. Cobden and Bright strove, in speeches and 
writings, to dissipate the atmosphere of mutual mistrust and 
suspicion. The French Commercial Treaty, carried through by 
Cobden in i860, was intended to counteract the war preparations 5 
it was a favourite thesis of the two great Free Traders that protective 
tariffs and other hindrances to international trade were a frequent 
incentive to war. At this time Bright was much exercised by 
the rapid growth of armaments in Europe. He wrote to Cobden 1 
(October 10, i860) : “The greatest mechanical intellects of our 
time are absorbed in the question how to complete instruments of 
defence and destruction, and there seems no limit to their discoveries 
or projects, so long as France and England shall lead in great arma¬ 
ments and in the attempt to dominate over the world.” 

* Trevelyan, p. 292. 


288 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


In January 1861 he proposed to Gladstone that the Government 
should allow Cobden to supplement his treaty success of the previous 
year by negotiating with the French Emperor for a mutual reduction 
of armarments. “ At least fifteen millions a year might be saved 
to the two countries at once by such an arrangement as I speak of, 
besides the increasing peril of war from these frightful preparations 
and this incessant military excitement.” Bright had reason to believe 
that the Emperor (who, as President, had made such a suggestion 
in 1849 only for it to be rejected by Palmerston) would favour 
the plan, while in England it had the support of Disraeli as leader 
of the Opposition, but it was not taken up by the Palmerston 
Government, which thus threw away a precious opportunity. Within 
five years the rivalry in armaments was transferred to Prussia and 
France, and the dreaded conflagration soon followed. 

But before that time Bright had to pass through a crisis which 
tried him more keenly than any other episode of his life, excepting 
the dark years of the Crimean War. In the summer of 1861 the 
smouldering trouble between North and South in the United States 
burst into flame, and for four years the great Republic was torn 
by civil war. Bright in his private business life suffered severely from 
the cotton famine induced by the Northern blockade, but his sympa¬ 
thies never wavered. To him the cause of the North was the cause 
of liberation against slavery, and of constitutional order against 
rebellion. 1 He steadfastly opposed the attempts made in England 
to recognize the Confederate Government as an independent State, 
and his great speeches did much to instruct public opinion on the 
merits of the struggle. Even at the opening of the war he defended 
the Federal Government—with a significant proviso. He said : 
“ No man is more in favour of peace than I am; no man has 
denounced war more than I have, probably, in this country ; few 
men in their public life have suffered more obloquy—I had almost 
said more indignity—in consequence of it. But I cannot for the 
life of me see upon any of those principles upon which States are 
governed now—I say nothing of the literal words of the New 
Testament—I cannot see how the state of affairs in America with 
regard to the United States Government could have been different 
from what it is at this moment.” 

In his private letters to Sumner he expressed himself more freely, 
blaming the North for mistakes of policy in the past and for their 

* For another view <vide Goldwin Smith, The United States , p. 249. 


JOHN BRIGHT 289 

“foolish tariff” which alienated English opinion. Indeed, while 
denouncing the Southern leaders as “ traitors to human nature 
itself, he was at first doubtful whether the war could be brought 
to a successful issue and feared the brutalizing effects of the struggle 
on the America which he loved and admired. In the autumn of 
1861 he wrote to Sumner : “Many who cavil at you now say, 
‘ If the war were for liberating the slave, then we could see something 
worth fighting for, and we could sympathize with the North.’ I 
cannot urge you to such a course, the remedy for slavery would be 
almost worse than the disease, and yet how can such a disease be got 
rid of without some desperate remedy ? ” 

During the Trent crisis of 1861 Bright was one of the most 
strenuous workers for peace, 1 his letters to Sumner urging modera¬ 
tion on the American side were read in the Lincoln Cabinet, and 
received the more attention because at the same time Bright was 
making some of his most effective speeches on behalf of the 
Northern cause. In the jllabama difficulty he was equally earnest 
that England should be ready to submit the case to arbitration. 
At Rochdale (December 4,1861) he pleaded for the same benevolent 
neutrality towards the North that we had exercised towards Italy 
in 1859, and a few days later in the same town (December 21st) 
he spoke out boldly against the criticisms that The Times directed 
against the North : “ I hope it is equally averse to fratricidal strife 
in other districts ; for if it be true that God has made of one blood 
all the families of man to dwell on the face of all the earth, it must 
be fratricidal strife whether we are slaughtering Russians in the 
Crimea or bombarding towns on the sea-coast of the United States. 

“ Now, no one will expect that I should stand forward as the 
advocate of war, or as the defender of that great sum of all crimes 
which is involved in war. But when we are discussing a question 
of this nature, it is only fair that we should discuss it upon principles 
which are acknowledged not only in the country where the strife 
is being carried on, but are universally acknowledged in this country. 
When I discussed the Russian War, seven or eight years ago, I always 
condemned it on principles which were accepted by the Government 
and people of England, and I took my facts from the Blue-book 
presented to Parliament. I take the liberty, then, of doing that in 

1 On December 9th, when war seemed imminent, he wrote to Cobden : “ I 
look for a retirement from Parliament if war actually takes place. I will not kill 
myself with proving it wicked, as I nearly did seven years ago.’* 

*9 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


290 

this case ; and I say that, looking at the principles avowed in 
England, and at its policy, there is no man, who is not absolutely 
a non-resistant in every sense, who can fairly challenge the conduct 
of the American Government in this war. It would be a curious 
thing to find that the party in this country which on every public 
question affecting England is in favour of war at any cost, when 
they come to speak of the duty of the Government of the United 
States, is in favour of ‘ peace-at-any-price.’ ” 

Next year at Birmingham (December 18, 1862) he spoke 
in condemnation of all forms of excessive nationalism, “ whether 
from an Englishman who professes to be strictly English, or from 
an American strictly American, or from a Frenchman strictly French 
—whether it asserts in arrogant strains that Britannia rules the waves, 
or speak of ‘ manifest destiny ’ and the supremacy of the ‘ Stars 
and Stripes,’ or boasts that the Eagles of one nation, having once 
overrun Europe, may possibly repeat the experiment.” In the same 
speech he expressed the opinion that only a miracle could have averted 
this “ measureless calamity ” of war, and brought about the aboli¬ 
tion of slavery by peaceful means. “ Is not this war the penalty 
which inexorable justice exacts from America, North and South, 
for the enormous guilt of cherishing that frightful iniquity of slavery 
for the last eighty years ? ” In a similar strain he wrote to 
Whittier : 1 “It seems as if a peaceable termination of the great evil 
of slavery was impossible—the blindness, the pride, and the passion 
of men made it impossible. War was and is the only way out of the 
desperate difficulty of your country, and fearful as the path is, it 
cannot be escaped. I only hope there may be virtue enough in the 
North, notwithstanding the terrible working of the poison of 
slavery, to throw off the coil and to permit of a renovated and restored 
nation.” 

This letter has been described as one “ in support of the 
American Civil War.” It is rather one of gloomy submission to a 
terrible evil. That Bright supported the ideals represented by the 
North against those of the South is indisputable and, when Lincoln 
had once made Emancipation a plain issue, he felt that no peace 
could be admitted which involved any recognition of slavery. Perhaps 
his most emphatic expression of this is found in a letter to Villiers 
(August 5, 1863). 

“ I want no end of the war, and no compromise, and no reunion 
1 February 27, 1863, Pickard, Life of Whittier , ii. 451. 


JOHN BRIGHT 2 gi 

till the negro is made free beyond all chance of failure.” This 
language is strong enough, but it must be remembered that it 
was used by a neutral to a neutral, and not addressed to the 
warring North. His other letters of the time show that he feared 
the North was winning too easily and had not yet paid her share 
of the “ penalty ” for maintaining slavery. A week before he had 
written, also to Villiers (July 29^ 1863) : ** It needs as many 
plagues as Pharaoh suffered to force the corrupt portion of the 
Northern people to let the negro go.” 1 

Mr. Trevelyan, in his praise of Bright’s attitude, describes him 
as “ swallowing ” the peace formula by such a declaration, but the 
peace formula ” does not include a desire for the victory of the 
worse cause and the lower civilization. Bright deliberately refrained 
from urging the North into war on behalf of the slave,* but when 
that battle-cry had been adopted, he naturally desired that it should 
prove no false claim. Peace principles do not involve a neutrality 
which apportions equal condemnation to every belligerent, any more 
than religious toleration involves the view that all doctrines are 
equally false .3 

When the war ended, he wrote in his journal : “ The friends 
of freedom everywhere should thank God and take courage.” 

The eighteen years from the Peace of Paris in 1856 to the fall 
of Mr. Gladstone’s Government in 1874 were, as Mr. Trevelyan 
says, 4 a time in which Bright’s principles of foreign policy gradually 
won their way in England, until even in the Cabinet itself they 
supplanted the evil old superstition of the “ balance of power,” so 
long honoured by statesmen at the expense of the peoples of Europe. 
In 1859 sympathy for Italy and distrust of Napoleon III were 
counteracting forces which ensured our neutrality .5 In 1861 a 
few wise men on both sides of the Atlantic had restrained the rasher 
and more sensitive spirits in each nation. In 1864 a more dangerous 
crisis arose over the question of Schleswig-Holstein. Palmerston 
and Russell had expressed their sympathy for Denmark in terms 

1 Trevelyan, Life, p. 319. 2 Vide ante , p. 289. 

3 It may, perhaps, be noted that Bright seldom spent his eloquence in 
denouncing the actual conduct of hostilities by a belligerent, as distinct from the 
policy which led to war and the moral and economic evils which resulted from 
it. In 1861 he dissociated himself from Cobden’s objection to the methods of the 
Northern blockade. “ War is barbarous , and this is but an act of war” fc (to 
Sumner, December 21, 1861). 4 Trevelyan, Life, p. 417. 

s See Bright’s Speech at Birmingham, January 29, 1864. 


292 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


which were interpreted by the Danes as pledges of intervention on 
their behalf. But the Cabinet and the country were resolutely 
against a new Continental war, and the “ two aged ministers,” as 
Bright called them, had to retreat with considerable loss of prestige 
from their original position. Bright, of course, spoke against inter¬ 
vention, 1 pointing out that England had no concern in the question 
of the Duchies, and adding : “ If there be a Government possible 
in our day that will plunge this country into war under the pretence 
of maintaining the balance of power in Europe and sustaining any 
kingdom there, be it little or great, I say that Government not only 
is not worthy of the confidence of the people of England, but deserves 
our execration and abhorrence.” 

But for the time the lesson had been learnt. We were content 
to remain spectators in the duel between Austria and Prussia in 
1866, 2 and in the greater and more sanguinary duel of France and 
Germany in 1870. In 1873 we swallowed the somewhat nauseous 
medicine of the Alabama award without excessive complaint. 
Bright’s influence had had some effect in inducing American 
statesmen to modify the less tenable of the claims for compensation. 
This period, though saddened by the death of Cobden, must have 
been, politically, the most serene of Bright’s life. Both in home 
and foreign policy Conservative and Liberal Governments alike 
bore witness to the impress of his teaching .3 In December 1868, 
with much searching of heart, he joined the Gladstone Government, 
just fourteen years after he had been burnt in effigy, and nine years 
after he had been excluded, by Court and aristocratic influence, 
from the Whig Government of 1859. 

In the same year he had received the freedom of Edinburgh, 
and at his visit 4 delivered two fine speeches, one of which, to a 
deputation of working men, condensed into a few pungent paragraphs 
his teaching and his aspiration. After telling them that past wars 
had saddled the country with a debt on which they were then paying 
out of taxation £26,000,000' as interest, that they were spending 

* In 1858 (October 29th), Bright had protested against the “ networks and 
complications of our treaty system,” including the treaty which “ invites us, 
enables us, and perhaps, if we acted fully up to our duty with regard to it, would 
compel us to interfere in the question between Denmark and the Duchies.” 

2 Even The Times , in reviewing the events of that year, spoke of “ the recent 
English policy of withdrawing as much as possible from foreign complications ” 
as being “common ground to both parties” (Trevelyan, Life , p. 417). 

3 E.g. in Franchise, Land, and Irish legislation. 

4 November 5, 1868. 


JOHN BRIGHT 293 

a similar sum on military and naval preparations, in spite of the 
discredit under which “ the ancient theory of the balance of power ” 
then laboured, he continued : 

“ I do not know whether it is a dream, or a vision, or the fore¬ 
sight of a future reality that sometimes passes across my mind—I 
like to dwell upon it—but I frequently think the time may come 
when the maritime nations of Europe—this renowned country of 
which we are citizens, France, Prussia, Russia, resuscitated Spain, 
Italy—and the United States of America may see that those vast 
fleets are of no use ; that they are grand inventions by which the 
blood is withdrawn from the veins of the people to feed their 
ulcers ; and that they may come to this wise conclusion—they will 
combine at their joint expense, and under some joint management, 
to supply the sea with a sufficient sailing and armed police, which 
may be necessary to keep the peace on all parts of the watery surface 
of the globe, and that those great instruments of war and oppression 
shall no longer be upheld. This, of course, by many will be thought 
to be a dream or a vision, not the foresight of what they call a 
statesman. Still, I have faith that it will not be for ever that we 
shall read of what Wilberforce called the noxious race of heroes 
and conquerors ; that what Christianity points to will one day 
be achieved, and that the nations throughout the world will live 
in peace with one another.” 

When the catastrophe of the Franco-Prussian War convulsed 
Europe in July 1870, Bright was suffering from serious illness, 
and unable to take his share in Cabinet deliberations. He roused 
himself, however, sufficiently to protest against the Government’s 
action in regard to Belgium. The secret draft treaty suggested 
by France to Prussia in 1867 under which France was to annex 
Belgium, had just been published by The Times. Mr. Gladstone 
wrote to Bright (August 1, 1870), that this revelation, “ has thrown 
upon us the necessity either of doing something fresh to secure 
Belgium, or else of saying that under no circumstances would we 
take any step to secure her from absorption. . . . Neither do 
we think it would be right, even if it were safe, to announce that 
we would in any case stand by with folded arms, and see actions done 
which would amount to a total extinction of public right in Europe.” 1 
The step taken was a treaty, by which England engaged to join with 
either belligerent in the defence of Belgium, should the other violate 
1 Morley, Life of Gladstone , i, 341. 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


294 

its neutrality. Bright was alarmed, and replied (August 3), “ I 
differ from the Cabinet, and cannot sanction our entering into any 
new engagement for the military defence of Belgium, nor can I 
consent to ask Parliament to raise men and money for supporting 
the independence of any foreign State. To adopt the policy of the 
Cabinet would be for me to abandon principles which I have held 
and advocated during all my public life.” 1 Accordingly, though 
with great regret, he pressed his resignation upon his chief. “ I 
am consoled by the belief that I have never taken a step more clearly 
loyal to the Sovereign, and more faithful to the true interests of the 
people. I cannot consent to spend English blood and treasure for 
purposes which I do not deem to be English.” Bright’s objection 
was, in fact, primarily to the original treaty of 1831, as it is usually 
interpreted, and then to its renewal or re-emphasis under very 
different conditions.* 

Mr. Gladstone replied with an assurance that the step had been 
taken in the interests of peace, and that the annexation of Belgium 
by France would be a public crime, which might be averted by such 
a warning as the renewal of the treaty. He urged his colleague 
not to act hastily, but to await events, and this suggestion Bright 
adopted, being “ very anxious to do no harm at so critical a time.” 

He wrote more than once to Gladstone during the autumn, 
expressing grave misgivings over the question of Alsace-Lorraine. 
“We ought strongly to urge” (September 11, 1870) “the folly 
of retaining French territory, for to annex any part of France would 
be to sow the seeds of another war at no distant date. Europe has 
a right, at least by argument and advice, to endeavour to bring about 
such a settlement as shall leave no needless grievance in the minds 
of the French people.” Again (October 3rd), while considering 
Gladstone’s proposal for a plebiscite of the provinces impracticable, 
he wrote, “ the true objection is that peace will be less secure in future 
if territory be taken from France, and should Prussia be at war with 
Austria or Russia, she may calculate on an attack from the country 
she is now seeking to despoil. ... I had hoped that Germany 
would have been content with the demolition of the frontier fortresses, 

1 For permission to quote from these letters I am indebted to the kindness of 
Mrs. W. S. Clark and Mr. John Albert Bright* 

* In 1858, in his criticism of the multifarious treaties which hampered our 
foreign policy, he had said: “ If I mistake not, we have a treaty which binds us 
down to the maintenance of the little kingdom of Belgium, as established after 
its separation from Holland.” 


JOHN BRIGHT 295 

and the payment of the expenses of the war—but the conqueror 
is seldom generous or just—and if the temper of the Germans is 
like that of the English during the Crimean War, there is no hope 
of good from any appeal to them. I suspect neither Russia nor 
Austria would quite approve of a protest on the ground of the indis¬ 
position of the population to the transfer to Germany. They have 
not been accustomed to pay much attention to the popular will. 
The more broad objection, which I call European, would perhaps 
suit them better, and I think it would have quite as much weight 
with Germany. . . . France, under her military Government, 
has been a constant source of disquiet to Europe, and she will now 
suffer the more on that account. I grieve over the troubles of her 
peoples—yet, from the standpoint of Germany, I am not surprised 
at the determination of the Germans to disable her for the future.” 

In the previous letter he had described the triumph of Germany 
and the downfall of France as “ a great gain for liberty and peace ” 
—words which seem now unduly hopeful, but which have some 
justification, if we compare the condition of Europe during the 
twenty years of the Third Empire with the twenty years from the 
siege of Paris to the cession of Heligoland. 

When, in November 1870, Russia took advantage of the 
change in the European situation to shake off the restrictions imposed 
on her in the Black Sea by the Treaty of Paris, Bright again urged 
the Government to exercise restraint. “ Forgive me,” he wrote 
to Gladstone (November 18th), “for supposing there was danger 
of your becoming too much involved in the Russian question. But 
there are people who seem always to hunger for war, and Govern¬ 
ments are too often moved by them, and drift on to positions from 
which there seems no honourable retreat. . . . When I remember 
the treatment of Russia by England and France in 1854, I am not 
much surprised that, when France is down , and England almost 
helpless in the matter, Russia should speak in uncivil tones.” 

The peaceful settlement of the Alabama question by the award 
of 1873 gave much satisfaction to Bright. He wrote to Granville : 

“ I believe if the English Government had shown the same 
wise and just disposition in time past, almost all wars with European 
Powers since the days of William III might have been avoided.” 

But he was still able to take little active part in politics, and his 
chief utterances on the peace question during these years are to be 
found in a few public letters. 


296 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


To a working man’s conference held at Leeds amid the war 
alarms of 1878 he declares that if the trade unions “would speak 
out for peace, there would be no war. There are men and classes 
to whom war is sometimes gain ; to the working men it is only loss.” 1 

In 1874 the Gladstone Government had been succeeded by 
that of Disraeli, the first to adopt deliberately the watchword of 
“ Imperalism,” and the policy of aggression on the borders of the 
British Empire. This, and the threat of intervention in the Russo- 
Turkish quarrel, involved the country in wars and dangers of war, 
which finally led to a reaction in favour of peace and a change of 
ministry. 

Bright did much, though less, indeed, than Gladstone, to bring 
about the change. In 1870 he had expressed the hope that, on the 
question of foreign policy, “I may yet have strength given me to speak 
at least one speech to my countrymen—for their blindness upon it 
has been their bane, and it may be their ruin.”* The wish was more 
than fulfilled. In 1877—8 he was able to make several strong and 
strongly reasoned speeches against the threatened Russian War. 
One of the best, delivered at Birmingham on January 13, 1878, 
has several passages which have now gained a fresh significance. 
He reminded his hearers that in 1839 “some people had really 
so nearly approached a condition fit for Bedlam that they believed 
the Russians were likely to come through the Baltic and invade 
the east coast of England,” and then he went on to draw a parallel 
between conditions in 1854—5 and 1877—8. 

“ But still, we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that there 
is something of a war party in this country, and that it has free 
access to some, and indeed to not a few, of the newspapers of the 
London Press. If there is any man here who thinks the question 
of our policy doubtful, if there is any man in the country who shall 
read what I say now who is in doubt, I ask him to look back to the 
policy of twenty-three years ago and to see how it was then tried, 
and how it succeeded or how it failed. The arguments were the 
same then exactly as they are now. The falsehoods were the same. 
The screechings and howlings of a portion of the Press were just 
about the same. But the nation now—and if nations learned nothing, 
how long could they be sustained ?—has learned something—and 
it has risen above this. I am persuaded that there is a great difference 
of opinion as to Russian policy in the main, or Turkish policy in this 
* Public Letters, p. 213. . To Gladstone, December 14, 1870. 


JOHN BRIGHT 297 

war, and men may pity especially the suffering on the one side or 
the suffering on the other—for my share I pity the sufferings on 
both sides—and whatever may be our differences of opinion, I think 
it is conclusively proved that the vast bulk of all the opinion that 
is influential in this country upon this question leads to this : that 
the nation is for a strict and rigid neutrality throughout this war. 

It is a painful and terrible thing to think how easy it is to 
stir up a nation to war. Take up any decent history of this country 
from the time of William III until now—for two centuries, or nearly 
so—and you will find that wars are always supported by a class of 
arguments which after the war is over, people find were arguments 
they should not have listened to. It is just so now, for unfortunately 
there still remains the disposition to be excited on these questions. 
Some poet—I forget which it is—has said : 

Religion, freedom, vengeance, what you will, 

A word’s enough to raise mankind to kill; 

Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread, 

That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed. 

‘ Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread ’ like the 
cunning phrase of the ‘ balance of power,’ which has been described 
as the ghastly phantom which the Government of this country 
has been pursuing for more than two centuries, and has never yet 
overtaken. ‘Some cunning phrase’ like that we have now of 
‘ British interests.’ Lord Derby has said the wisest thing that has 
been uttered by any member of the Administration during the 
discussion on this war, when he said that the greatest of British 
interests is peace. And a hundred, far more than a hundred, public 
meetings have lately said the same, and millions of households of 
men and women have thought the same.” 

Happily the war party of 1878 had less power than its forerunner 
of 1855. But its passions were as easily inflamed and as reckless. 
A jingo mob broke Mr. Gladstone’s windows. Bright was attacked 
and roughly handled on leaving a peace-meeting at the Free Trade 
Hall, Manchester, on April 30th. A fortnight later his wife died, 
and he took no further active part in the peace campaign, although 
he watched its progress anxiously. Next year, in his annual speech 
to his constituents, 1 he denounced “ this unpleasant business ” of 
the Afghan War then in progress, as one “ deformed by falseness 

1 Birmingham, April r 1879. 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


298 

and dishonour.” This judgment he reiterated in the following 
year, with fuller information. 1 

“It was a war begun in the dark, carried on in secret by a 
diplomacy which was denied in both Houses of Parliament, and 
falsely denied. It was begun against the evidence and opinion . . . 
of all the sensible and just men who have heretofore been thought 
the greatest authorities upon Indian matters. . . . Our Govern¬ 
ment, by its policy, has carried anarchy, and war, and slaughter, 
and fire throughout the whole of that country.” 

These wars upon native races always aroused Bright’s deep 
indignation, and in this election campaign of 1880 he had for text 
not only the Afghan, but the Zulu War. In allusion to both he said, 3 
“ I believe all wars are savage and cruel—but I mean harsh and cruel 
wars on uncivilized or half-civilized men. When I read of transac¬ 
tions of that kind something always puts to me this question : ‘ What 
is it that makes, if anything makes, this needless and terrible slaughter 
different in its nature from those transactions which we call murder ? ’ 
... At most, in regard to either of these people, the case was one 
of suspicion ; but was it right, upon a mere suspicion, that a country 
like this should send in the one case 20,000 and in the other 40,000 
troops to invade territories, and to put to death not less perhaps 
than 20,000 men engaged in the defence of their own country, 
which in our case we considered honourable and needful ? ” 
Again : “You hear of the hanging of scores of men, you hear of 
villages burnt, of women and children turned out into the snow 
and the cold of this inclement season, and all done at the command 
of a Government and a people professing to be wiser, more intelligent, 
more humane, and more Christian than those upon whom those 
attacks are made. . . . Take down, at any rate, your Ten Com¬ 
mandments from inside your churches, and say no longer that you 
read, or believe in, or regard, the Sermon on the Mount. Abandon 
your Christian pretensions, or else abandon your savage and heathen 
practices.” He had the courage on a later occasion to describe the 
Zulu warriors as men “ who, if they had been of our nation, would 
have had songs written in their honour, and magnificent orations 
delivered in their praise, and their leading men who fell would have 
found no doubt a home for their bones and a tablet in Westminster 
Abbey .”3 

1 March 28, 1880. 2 January 22, 1880. 

3 Birmingham, March 28, 1880. 


JOHN BRIGHT 299 

In this speech one passage is peculiarly characteristic of the 
tenderness which always underlay his abhorrence of war and oppres¬ 
sion. It may be compared with the description of his little children, 
which occurs in the midst of his great speech on America (June 30, 
*863). Next to children, Bright loved animals, and his eloquence 
made the sufferings of the army camels an item in the indictment 
of the Disraeli Government. 

“ You know something of the untold miseries which war brings 
upon men and women and little children ; but there is one point 
that nobody, so far as I know, has ever touched upon, that which 
has always had a certain interest for me, and which has excited my 
sympathy. I have seen in some of the narratives of the Afghan 
War that all the region round had been swept for camels as beasts 
of burden for the forces. What became of the camels ? The least 
number I have heard it put at was 30,000—it has been reckoned 
as high as 40,000 or 50,000 camels—who have perished in these 
expeditions. One of our greatest poets in a beautiful stanza has 
one line where he says, ‘ Mute the camel labours with the heaviest 
load,’ and though the camel is not able by any voice of his to make 
protest or complaint, yet the burdened, overdriven, exhausted, 
dying beast—I cannot but believe that even the cruelties inflicted 
on him will be found written upon imperishable tablets by the 
recording angel.” 

The General Election of 1880 ended in a decisive victory for 
the Liberals. Bright again entered the Cabinet, but his tenure of 
office was not to be long. With his colleagues he became involved 
in the deplorable South African policy, and cannot be acquitted 
of a share of responsibility for the errors and delays which culminated 
in the disaster of Majuba Hill. But when he awoke to the facts 
he was one of the strongest influences for peace and conciliation. 
Indeed, if hostilities had been continued, the Cabinet would in all 
probability have lost both Bright and Chamberlain. Even before 
the matter was finally adjusted he replied to a deputation that 
“ the conflict is one in which England can gain nothing, not even 
military glory, which is the poorest kind of glory in my view which 
men and nations strive for.” 1 The discoveries of the mistakes of this 
year had probably aroused his vigilance, for he became a strong 
opponent of the Cabinet’s Egyptian policy, although in this struggle 
he stood alone. When the bombardment of Alexandria took place, 

1 Public Letters , p. 250. 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURT 


300 

he resigned. The only wonder is that he delayed so long, but 
Gladstone had repeatedly assured him that the negotiations would 
have a peaceful end, and he was very reluctant to embarrass a 
Government to some of whose members he was bound by ties of 
old and intimate friendship. On July 12th he wrote to Gladstone 
announcing his resignation and explaining it by “ the doctrines 
connected with foreign policy which I have preached and defended 
during forty years of my public life.” Gladstone urged reconsidera¬ 
tion, but Bright was inflexible. “ I cannot allow the country ” 
(he wrote next day) “ to assume that I have supported, or do support, 
a policy the results of which are so dreadful, and to which I have 
been opposed.” Again, on July 15th : 

“ I should ruin myself in the estimation of all those who have 
been influenced by my teaching on what should be our foreign policy, 
and on the moral code by which we ought to be, and by which I 
feel myself, bound. There is nothing the world can offer me which 
would make amends for the remorse I should feel if I were 
associated with the policy in which the Cabinet is involved. 

From your conversation to-day, and from your letter or memo¬ 
randum, I am driven to the conclusion that there is a wide gulf, 
wider than I had supposed, between your views and mine.” 

Although Bright refrained from a campaign against the Egyptian 
War on the lines of his speeches in the Crimean War, his condemna¬ 
tion of it never wavered. In his short speech to the House of Com¬ 
mons explaining his resignation, he described the bombardment 
as “ a manifest breach not only of international law, but also of the 
moral law.” His other public utterance at the time took the form 
of a reply 1 to the Reverend Thomas Rippon, who had drawn his 
attention to a criticism by the Spectator . 

“The Spectator and other supporters of this war answer me 
by saying that I oppose the war because I condemn all war. The 
same thing was said during the Crimean War. 

“ I have not opposed any war on the ground that all war is 
unlawful and immoral. I have never expressed such an opinion. 

I have discussed these questions of war, Chinese, Crimean, Afghan, 
Zulu, Egyptian, on grounds common to and admitted by all thought¬ 
ful men, and have condemned them with arguments which I believe 
have never been answered. 

“ I will not discuss the abstract question. I shall be content 

1 Public Letters, p. 273. 


JOHN BRIGHT 301 

when we reach the point at which all Christian men will condemn 
war when it is unnecesssary, unjust, and leading to no useful or 
good result. We are far from that point now, but we make some 
way towards it. 

But of this war I may say this, that it has no better justifica¬ 
tion than other wars which have gone before it and that, doubtless, 
when the blood is shed, and the cost paid, and the results seen and 
weighed, we shall be generally of that opinion. Perhaps the bond¬ 
holders and those who have made money by it, and those who have 
got promotion and titles and pensions, will defend it, but thoughtful 
and Christian men will condemn it.” In 1883, at a meeting of 
the Liberation Society, he attacked in scathing language a thanks¬ 
giving for the campaign promulgated by one Bishop in his diocese 
in which was the phrase, “ Teach us to see that Thy hand hath 
done it.” “It proves ” (said Bright) “ the indestructible quality 
that there is in the Christian faith that it should so long have 
survived the treason of those who pretend to teach it.” 

Later, in his opposition to the Home Rule Bill, he alluded to 
the bombardment as “a great blunder, and I am afraid nationally 
a great crime.” 

Except in this opposition to the Home Rule Bill, which was 
partly based on his detestation of the disorder and violence by which 
the Nationalist agitation had been defaced, Bright in his last years 
took little part in politics. He watched with apprehension the growth 
of the militarist spirit in both political parties—a growth which 
led to Mr. Gladstone’s resignation of leadership a few years later, 
and he found no politician willing to take up his mantle and go forth 
as a prophet of peace. 

What then had he accomplished in the cause of peace during 
almost fifty years of political activity ? Throughout his life he had 
stood firmly for principles of foreign policy, which were profoundly 
unpopular when he first advocated them, yet became the admitted 
maxims of the British Government for many years of the nineteenth 
century. He denounced secret diplomacy and entangling treaties, 
and the heedless spirit which goes to war for prestige or intervenes 
in quarrels where the country’s interests are not involved. With 
Cobden’s help, he taught the nations to know one another better 
and showed them the folly of the panic-breeding competition in 
armaments. When Lord Derby, in 1878, declared that “ the greatest 
of British interests is peace,” he showed himself a pupil in the school 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


302 

of Bright and Cobden. But it needed less wisdom to draw this moral 
after the object lesson of the Crimean War and the convulsions 
of Europe during the ’sixties and ’seventies. Bright had the courage 
and insight to teach the principles of peace in the midst of the fury 
and madness of war. As Mr. Trevelyan says, he “showed the 
world how a war can be patriotically denounced, with permanent 
effects upon opinion in favour of keeping peace.” 1 Yet eloquence 
and patriotism had inspired the leaders of the opposition to the 
American and French Wars, but they did not stand as remote from 
all suspicion of personal or party advantage as did Bright and Cobden, 
who manfully risked (and incurred) the loss of political prospects 
and popular influence to uphold what they believed to be rignt 
in itself and for the true interests of their country. 

Amongst innumerable false, unmov’d. 

Unshaken, unseduc’d, unterrified, 

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal; 

Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind. 

Bright was equally ready to give up office itself for the sake of 
principle, but this was a lesser sacrifice than those he underwent 
during the Crimean War. He was devoid of the personal ambition 
which finds its reward in political power and patronage, and he 
was always more ready to leave than to enter a Ministry. His 
countrymen felt assured that the moral principles which he advocated 
in his political speeches were the same in kind as those guiding his 
individual conduct. This, rather than his eloquence, gave him 
his unequalled hold upon the affections of the working people. 
Dr. Dale of Birmingham said (on the “silver wedding” of Bright’s 
representation of the city) : “ The man is greater than the eloquence, 
the man is nobler than his service. ... I believe he has elevated 
the national ideal of political morality.” 

It was a common sneer of their opponents (even echoed by 
Tennyson) that Bright and Cobden’s advocacy of peace was based 
on the fear of the mere monetary and commercial losses of war. 
Bright had lived through the years following Waterloo, and he 
had seen the abject wretchedness of the mass of the people, due to 
the pressure of war debt and war taxation. As he said, he cared 
for the condition of the people among whom he lived, and the 

1 Trevelyan, p. 218, 


JOHN BRIGHT 303 

impulse of pity and indignation inspired his opposition to the Corn 
Laws and to war. In his old age he wrote : “ In war the working 
men find the main portion of the blood which is shed, and on them 
fall the poverty and misery which are occasioned by the increase 
of taxes and damage to industry.” 1 The economic arguments against 
war are neither ignoble nor unpatriotic, and Bright never shrank 
from employing them. But the moral argument fills and colours 
every speech which he made. One of his finest perorations is typical 
of many other passages. 3 

“ The most ancient of profane historians has told us that the 
Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they 
elevated an old cimeter upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to 
Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To 
this cimeter they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main 
wealth of the country, and more costly sacrifices than to all the 
rest of their gods ; I often ask myself whether we are at all advanced 
in one respect beyond those Scythians. What are our contributions 
to charity, to education, to morality, to religion, to justice, and to 
civil government, when compared with the wealth we expend in 
sacrifice to the old cimeter ? ... I do most devoutly believe that 
the moral law was not written for men alone in their individual 
character, but that it was written as well for nations, and for 
nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations reject and 
deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. 
It may not come at once, it may not come in our lifetime ; but, 
rely upon it, the great Italian poet is not a poet only, but a prophet 
when he says : 

The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite 
Nor yet doth linger. 

We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. 
We know what the past has cost us, we know how much and how 
far we have wandered, but we are not left without a guide. It is 
true we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim 
—those oraculous gems on Aaron’s breast—from which to take 
counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the 
moral law to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance, 
can we be permanently a great nation or our people a happy people.” 

1 Public Letters , p. 293. 

a On foreign policy, Birmingham, October 29, 1858. 




























































\ 




V 




PART V 


FRIENDS ABROAD 








20 


Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing. Spare no place, spare 
no tongue nor pen; but be obedient to the Lord God; go through the 
work; be valiant for the truth upon earth; and tread and trample upon 
all that is contrary. . . . This is the word of the Lord God to you all, 
and a charge to you all in the presence of the living God ; be patterns, be 
examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; 
that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them ; 
then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of 
God in everyone; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the 
witness of God in them to bless you. . . . Go through your work 
faithfully, and in the strength and power of the Lord; and be obedient 
to the power ; for that will save you out of the hands of unreasonable men, 
and preserve you over the world to himself. —Letter of George Fox in 
Launceston Gao/, 1656. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE WEST INDIES 

The West Indian Islands, occupied by England in the days of 
Charles I and the Commonwealth, were soon invaded by Quaker 
missionaries on their way to the American continent. Two women 
Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, were the first visitors in Barbadoes 
in j 655 > and in a few years’ time there were settlements of Friends 
on that island, Jamaica, Antigua, Nevis, and Bermuda. At the high- 
water mark of Quakerism in Barbadoes there were five meeting¬ 
houses there, seating some 1,200 worshippers, and in the year 1700 
the number of Friends in Jamaica was reckoned at 9,000. The 
two women made but a short stay. In 1657 John Bowron of 
Durham travelled in Surinam and spoke frequently to the natives 
through an interpreter. They greeted him as “ a good man come 
from far to preach the white man’s God,” and he seems to have 
been the first Quaker to give his message to men of another race.* 
In the same year the Governor of Jamaica* wrote home for 
instructions how to deal with two Quaker visitors who appeared 
“ people of an unblameable life,” although he learnt from “ prints ” 
(English news letters) that their leaders at home were conspiring 
against the Government. Bermuda received the Quaker message 
in 1660. In Barbadoes a wealthy planter, Lieutenant-Colonel Rous 
and his son John became Friends and leaders of the Society in the 
island. John Rous, with other Barbadian Quakers, visited New 
England as a preacher in 1657. There he suffered cruel floggings 
and the loss of an ear by order of what Friends at home called bitterly 
“ the new Inquisition in New England.” Later he settled in 
England and married the eldest daughter of Margaret Fell, and in 
1671 he returned to the West Indies with his father-in-law, George 

1 Piety Promoted ’ i. 234. 

2 Thurloe, State Papers , vi. 834. Vide Rufus Jones, Quakers in American 
Colonies, p. 43. 


307 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


308 

Fox, and ten other English Quakers. They spent some strenuous 
months there before visiting North America, and during his stay 
Fox wrote an often-quoted letter to the Governor of Barbadoes 
defending Quakers against charges of heresy, and showing that they 
held orthodox views concerning the person and work of Christ. 

The islands, however, for Quakers were scarcely 

a grassy stage 

Safe from the storm and prelates’ rage, 1 

for much emigration thither was involuntary. Cromwell began 
the bad practice of transporting prisoners of war as servants to the 
plantations, and it was soon extended to other persons of inconvenient 
views whom the home Government wished to keep at a safe distance. 
The most notorious instance of this practice was the wholesale 
exportation from the West Country after the Monmouth Rebellion, 
but even in 1677 the Governor of Nevis in an Act forbidding 
Friends to land on the island specifically excepted from the order 
“ all such Quakers as are sent hither by his Majesty’s special 
command.” 2 There are frequent complaints in the colonial records 
that these Quakers, after their term of service, enjoyed what their 
neighbours considered an undue share of prosperity as merchants, 
planters, or shopkeepers. 

The rapid growth of Quakerism, as also the sensitiveness of 
its leaders to moral issues, is shown in an epistle sent by Fox in 
1657 to “Friends beyond the seas that have Blacks and Indian 
Slaves .”3 “ In this he points out that God hath made all nations 
of one blood, and that the gospel is preached to every creature under 
heaven. And so, he says, ‘ ye are to have the mind of Christ, 
and to be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.’ ”4 In his 
letter to the Governor of Barbadoes in 1671 he defended the practice 
of the Quakers there in giving moral and religious instruction to 
their negroes. The Governor feared that this instruction implied 
“ teaching negroes to rebel,” and his fear was probably not allayed 
by Fox’s explanation : 

“ As to their blacks or negroes, I desired them to endeavour 
to train them up in the fear of God, those that were bought, and 
those born in their families. 

. . That they would cause their overseers to deal mildly and 

* Andrew Marvell. 2 Besse, ii. 362. 3 Fox, Epistles, p. 153. 

4 Quakers in the American Colonies , p. 44. 



THE WEST INDIES 309 

gently with their negroes, and not use cruelty towards them, as the 
manner of some hath been and is ; and that after certain years of 
servitude they would make them free.” 

1 hus the first seeds of the anti-slavery movement were scattered, 
to grow and spread for a century and a half until the evil was 
overthrown. 

It was not to be expected that the Quaker peace testimony 
would meet with much sympathy in the West Indies. The islands 
belonged to several of the chief European States—Spain, France, 
Holland and Great Britain—and were swept into the whirlpool 
of each European war in turn, while yet their position was so isolated 
that they had mainly to depend on their own resources for defence, 1 

In these wars there were temporary conquests, during which 
the conquered islands suffered from fire and sword, only to be handed 
back to their original owners when peace was made. The appearance 
of an enemy’s fleet to bombard the shores was terrifying enough, 
but still more serious was the menace to trade from robbers on the 
high seas, who called themselves privateers in war-time, but were 
unabashed pirates in peace. The West India merchant ships made 
their voyages armed like men-of-war, and even so their rich cargoes 
often fell a prey to these adventurers. In addition, on some islands, 
there were still tribes of the wild Carib Indians who could be bribed 
or incited by Spain or France to make war on the English settlers, 
and there was the ever-present danger of a slave rebellion. 

Under these conditions, in most of the islands, both Friends 
and magistrates had to undergo considerable exercise of mind before 
they were able to reach a modus vivendi. In Barbadoes, for example, 
the Governor and Council met in June 1660 to consider measures 
for the safety of the island. The latest news from England showed 
that the restoration of Charles II was imminent, and it was feared 
that the King of France might claim some colonies from him 
in return for all the French aid given to the Stuarts in their necessity. 
The Council had before it some “ Reasons against the being and 
sect of the Quakers within this island ” as follows : 

“ 1. For that they correspond not in the civil and military 
services and duties of this island equal with the other inhabitants. 

“ 2. For that their principles and practice is against the funda- 

1 In 1650, Barbadoes declared for the Royalist cause, proclaiming Charles II 
as King, and the island was able to hold out until 1652. 


310 FRIENDS ABROAD 

mentals of the Christian faith, constitution, and laws of the 
Commonwealth. 

“ 3* For that they daily seduce multitudes to be their proselytes 
and consequently weaken the island’s defence.” 

For these reasons the Council was advised to pass an Act against 
all refusing to serve in the militia, fining them “ five hundred pounds 
of sugar for the first offence, one thousand pounds of sugar for the 
second, and a thousand pounds for every default after the second, 
and to be committed (to gaol) until the same be paid.” 

With a promptness that might arouse envy in modern Ministries 
hampered by constitutional restraints, the advice was followed : 
“ an Act was passed this day, and entered in the book of Acts.” 1 
Besse, in his chapter on Barbadoes, 3 gives the sequel. Between 
1659 and 1669 the Quakers were fined to the amount of 111,000 
pounds of sugar, of which all but 22,000 pounds was on account 
of the militia, and several members of the Society suffered imprison¬ 
ment. In the last-named year they petitioned the Governor and 
Council to relieve their sufferings, “ for not bearing or sending in 
to arms, and for not sending help to build and repair forts ; we 
witnessing in measure that prophecy fulfilled, 4 not to learn war any 
more,’ and it is according to Christ’s own words, where he saith 4 My 
kingdom is not of this world, therefore My servants do not fight,’ 
and it is likewise according to Christ’s precept, to ‘ love enemies.’ ” 

The hearts of the authorities were not softened, and fines increased. 
In the five years from 1669 to i6 74 they amounted (for the militia) 
to nearly 118,000 pounds of sugar. In 1674 the Quakers petitioned 
once more, though, indeed, “ petition ” is hardly the appropriate 
word for their challenge. “ So be it known unto all people, that 
from henceforward we are resolved to fight under no other 
commander but the Lord Jesus Christ. . . . We cannot, directly, 
nor indirectly, war, fight against, kill, nor destroy men’s persons, 
neither be aiding nor assisting them therein ; but if we must suffer 
from men for obeying our Commander, we must bear it with patience 
until he shall arise to plead our cause.” They meet the familiar 
taunt “ that if all were of your mind, our enemies would come and 
take the island from us,” by the reply that if all were of a mind to 
obey God’s commandments they would escape his judgments “ one 

* Calendar State Papers Am. and West Indies , 1574-1660, p. 483. Colonial 
Entry Book , xi. 12, C.O. 31/1. a Besse, Sufferings , ii. ch. vi. 


THE WEST INDIES 311 

whereof is war.” A year earlier the Governor and Council had 
written to the home authorities that the weakness of the militia 
was due to the number of islanders with physical or mental defects, 
“ in which quality we deem the Quakers.” 1 Hence the reply to this 
declaration was a more severe Militia Act in 1675, which was re¬ 
inforced in 1677. The steady increase in fines was due partly to 
the fall in the price of sugar and partly to an increase in the efficiency 
of the militia, “ there being,” Besse says, “ every month a general 
exercising in the island.” Some brutal punishments are recorded. 
Young Richard Andrews, aged eighteen, was taken for the militia 
out of his master’s shop. 3 He refused to bear arms, saying: “ He 
durst not break Christ’s command,” and a few days later he was 
sent to a fort, and there one Sunday “ tied neck and heels for an 
hour,” beaten, and kept at the fort for a week, “ his lodging being 
mostly on the cold stones.” He came home ill and wretched, but 
a fortnight later he suffered the same punishment, “ tied so strait 
that he could hardly speak,” till even the soldiers pitied him. In 
a few days he was struck down by dysentery, and before his death 
he expressed “ great satisfaction of mind for having stood faithful 
to his testimony against fighting.” 

Charles had appointed a Committee for Trade and Plantations, 
a body which was to develop into the Colonial Office. To it in 1680 
Sir Jonathan Atkins, the Governor, more than once referred for 
instructions about his Quaker subjects. The Committee had advised 
him not to administer oaths to them, but to govern in some other 
way. “ What that other way is,” replied the poor Governor, “ I 
am to seek. ... To the great discontent of the people, to their 
own great ease and advantage, they neither will serve upon juries, 
find arms, or send to the militia, nor bear any office, shifting it off 
with their constant tricks ‘ they cannot swear,’ when profit is the 
end they aim at. And the King’s faithful and dutiful subjects are 
forced to bear their burden, when by an Act of Parliament of England 
they were proscribed . . . and condemned to be transported to 
this and other of his Majesty’s Plantations foreign ; of which they 
have made so good use as to put themselves into a better condition 
than they could be elsewhere.” Later in the year he repeated this 
complaint against “ Anabaptists, Quakers, and other Dissenters.” 3 

1 Col. Papers , xxx. 40, C.O. 1. * Besse, ii. ch. vi. 

i Col. Entry Bool, vi. 318 j vii. 89-100, C.O. 29 jz and 3. Calendar , 1677- 
80, pp. 503-4. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


3 12 

Even in smaller matters the knight was inconvenienced by Quaker 
scruples. On May 21, 1680, he told the Commissioners that he 
was sending to them a map of the island. “ But I cannot much 
commend it to your Lordships. It cost the fellow a good sum of 
money to get it perfected, for he was forced to send it to London. 
But that it is true in all particulars I cannot affirm, but there is none 
here that ever undertook it but himself. He is a Quaker, as your 
Lordships may perceive by his not mentioning the churches, nor 
expressing the fortifications, of both of which they make great 
scruple.” 1 

The reign of James II at first witnessed an increase of trouble 
for Barbadian Quakers. A Militia Act with even stiffer penalties 
was passed in 1685. The records of the Colonial Office and of the 
Meeting for Sufferings show that for some years there was a brisk 
correspondence on the matter between England and the colony. 
After a vain appeal to the Governor the Quakers twice petitioned 
the King, once before the new Act had received his signature, and 
again when it had passed into law. They complained that the fines 
imposed showed undue discrimination against Quakers, and that 
the method of levy was changed. Up to this time the fine had always 
been in sugar, but now “ the price being low, they levy their 
executions upon our most serviceable negroes, both men, women, 
and children, taking away, parting and selling husbands, wives, and 
children one from another, to the great grief, lamentation, and distrac¬ 
tion of our negro families.” Cattle, too, and horses had been seized, 
and whereas in the towns formerly one member only of a household 
had been liable to service, now both master and apprentice were 
required to appear in arms. Hence Quaker tradesmen were forced 
to carry on their business without apprentices, and “ the young 
people go off the island to their own hurt and parents’ grief.” 2 

Steady pressure on the Committee for Plantations by the Meeting 
for Sufferings (a deputation from which presented the Petition) 
and possibly Penn’s influence with James induced both King and 
Committee to write to the island authorities. The Committee 
reminded them that “ his Majesty, having lately extended his favour 
to those people here, may be inclined to continue the same towards 
them in this particular ” and that the Governor should do his best 
to give them some ease. These are excellent sentiments in a docu- 

* Col. Entry Booh, vii. 19, C.O. 29/3. Calendar , 1677-80, p. 536. 

* Col. Papers , lvii. in, C.O. 1/59. Calendar , 1685-8, p. 208. 


THE WEST INDIES 313 

ment whose first signatory is “ Jeffrys, Chancellor.” James himself 
wrote to the Governor that as he had already received the Declara¬ 
tion of Indulgence, he should put it into force towards Quakers 
both in respect of liberty of worship and of admission to office without 
an oath. “ And in case any of them scruple or make difficulty to 
perform my service or take any employment upon them either civil 
or military, our will and pleasure is that no fine or fines be imposed 
upon them exceeding the usual value for the hire of another person 
to discharge the duty or service required.” The Governor in reply 
made many professions of willingness to administer the Act with 
leniency, but there were “ very few supernumerary people to be 
hired on the island.” The Quakers themselves did not keep enough 
white servants ; in fact, the general tendency of all employers was 
to replace “ Christians ” by negroes, who were cheaper and more 
profitable. The prosperity of the Quakers was such that “ they 
ought to make one regiment on the island,” and the lack of this 
might prove a danger in time of war. 1 In spite of the Governor’s 
promises, the Meeting for Sufferings received constant complaints 
of his severity. Even in March 1689, when James was a fugitive, 
heavy fines were inflicted “ in King James’s name, but no notice 
taken of what he sent in favour of Friends there.” The Meeting 
for Sufferings petitioned William and Mary, and the trouble must 
have ceased with the removal of the Jacobite governor, for in the 
autumn of 1690 Barbadian Friends sent £100 to the relief of the 
sufferers in Ireland. In 1693 the French war and fears of a negro 
rising led to the passing of an Act that all travellers in the island 
should ride armed. The Governor, as Friends wrote plaintively, 
“ let the Militia Act loose upon them,” vowing that he would hang 
all the Quakers at first sight of the French fleet. Some of his 
subordinates went beyond threats. A Quaker pleaded conscience 
as a reason for not bearing arms, and “ the Major replied, ‘ God 
damn your conscience, if I cannot make your conscience bow, 
I’ll make your stubborn dog’s back to bend,’ and so tied him neck 
and heels with his own hands in such a manner it almost deprived 
him of his life.” 2 Quakers at home obtained letters of intercession 
from the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Rochester to the Governor. 
These proved so effective that next year London Friends sent an 

1 Col. Entry Book, cviii. 286 ; vii. 379, 459, 463, C.O. 391/5. Calendar, 
1685-8, pp. 213, 219, 477, 516. 

2 Besse, ii. 351. Meeting for Sufferings, 1693. Barbadoes, 10th mo. 8. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


3*4 

official letter of thanks to the same Governor for his “ kindness ” 
to their brethren. Another difficulty in 1696 (when Friends were 
ready to ride on patrol duty if they might go unarmed) was met 
in the same way by an application to Admiral Russell, whose brother 
was the recently appointed Governor, and this seems to have been 
the last trouble of the kind. Besse reprints the careful record compiled 
by Friends on the island of the distraints and fines (mainly for the 
militia) suffered by their small body. Between 1658 and 1690 the 
value of these fines in money and sugar amounted to £118,000. 
In the eighteenth century the number of Friends gradually dwindled 
away. The last letter received by the English Friends was in 1764 
from John Luke, and in it he writes that the only meeting regularly 
held, at Bridgetown, seldom numbered more than a dozen 
worshippers. 1 

Jamaica records also show a gradual tightening of the laws 
against Friends. A Proclamation of 1662 granted to them freedom 
of worship and trade, with the promise that they “ shall not be 
forced in their own persons to bear arms, provided they shall 
contribute for the same,” and also be prepared to reveal to 
the Governor any “ foreign designs, invasions, conspiracies, or 
plots ” that come to their knowledge. This compromise did not 
succeed, for two years later Sir Thomas Moddyford and his Council 
resolved that any Quaker “ not appearing in the field at the several 
muster days should receive due punishment.” But in 1668 it was 
necessary to pass a reasoned Ordinance “ Whereas no Government 
can subsist” unless its subjects are willing to execute the military 
and civil duties assigned to them, and the Quakers’ refusal “ may 
prove, if many others should follow such evil example, the ruin 
and destruction of this Government,” therefore, all recalcitrants 
are to be committed to gaol until they pay the due fine. In 1670 
Governor and Council had to own themselves beaten. “ Whereas [a] 
few of the people called Quakers, living at Port Royal, have repre¬ 
sented to the Governor and Council that they cannot against their 
consciences bear arms and have given several reasons for the same, 
by which they seem to the Council very obstinate in that matter, 
and although the Governor and Council look on the said reasons 
as weak and frivolous, and on that opinion as dangerous and 
destructive to all government : yet, out of pity and compassion 
to those poor misled people in that particular ” (and also to help the 
1 In D. Epistles Received. 


THE WEST INDIES 315 

“ gentlemen and merchants,” who were ordered to guard the town 
every night in person) the Quakers were excused on condition of 
paying to the commander of the guards sufficient to hire three 
soldiers in each place. 1 

The fines cannot have been very strictly enforced. Besse only 
gives a few instances for a somewhat later period (1683-91) and 
the story of the maltreatment of one unfortunate, Peter Dashwood, 
who in 1687, for refusing military service, had twice “to ride the 
wooden horse with a musket at each leg.” In the more northern 
group of the Leeward Islands, Friends also suffered for their faith. 
The Quakers’ first visits to Nevis were between 1656 and 1658. 
Humphrey Highwood, who welcomed them and embraced their 
principles, was imprisoned for not warning the authorities of the 
arrival of these suspects. “ In process of time,” says Besse, “ being 
more perfectly convinced of the doctrine by them professed, he 
declined to bear arms or to serve in the militia, things wffiich he 
had not formerly scrupled to do,” and in consequence he endured 
many imprisonments and fines. 2 3 In 1671 two of the English Quakers 
who came with Fox to the West Indies, William Edmundson and 
Thomas Briggs, sailed to Nevis, but they were forbidden to land 
by the Governor, although the island Friends came on board ship 
for a meeting. The captain was forced to give £1,000 security 
that he would take back the two Quakers at once to Antigua. 
William Edmundson, with his accustomed courage, told the authori¬ 
ties “ it was very hard usage that we being Englishmen and coming 
so far as we had done to visit our countrymen, could not be admitted 
to come on shore, to refresh ourselves within King Charles’s 
dominions after such a long voyage.” Colonel Stapleton (Governor 
of Montserrat) said it was true. “ But ” (said he) “ we hear that 
since your coming to the Caribbee Islands there are seven hundred 
of our militia turned Quakers, and the Quakers will not fight, 
and we have need of men to fight, being surrounded with enemies, 
and that is the very reason why Governor Wheeler will not suffer 
you to land .”3 Even these quarantine measures could not check 
the spread of Quakerism, and in the next few years imprisonments 
were frequent. In 1674 ten Quakers sent from gaol a touching 
letter to the Governor. “ It is now twelve days since we were confined 

1 Col. Entry Books , xxxiv. 53-60, 126, 180, 203, C.O. 140/1. Calendar, 

1661-8, pp. hi, 287, 597 ; 1669-74, p. 84. * Besse, ii. 352. 

3 Journal of the Life ... of William Edmundson , p. 55. Besse, ii. 353. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


3 l6 

here, and there are some of us who have wives and children, and 
have nothing to maintain them but our labours. Now, General, 
the reason why we are thus imprisoned we do not well understand, 
unless for keeping the commandment of Christ, which we dare 
not disobey, for here we do declare that it is not of stubbornness 
nor of wilfulness, but in obedience of Christ Jesus. ... We desire 
that He would order thy heart that thou mightest discern betwixt 
us, who are in scorn called Quakers, a peaceable people, who fear 
God and make conscience of our ways, and those who run wilfully 
on their own heads and disobey thee.” 1 The Governor relented, 
for these men were released within a week, and next year there 
was some attempt at a compromise, if we may judge from a letter 
of George Fox. The Epistle “ to Friends at Nevis and the Caribbee 
Islands concerning Watching ” 2 3 was sent from Swarthmore Hall 
in November 1675. Fox mentions that he was unwell at the time, 
and the letter is confused with many repetitions, but its importance 
is sufficient to justify a full summary here. He had heard that there 
was “ some scruple concerning watching, or sending forth watchmen 
in your own way,” that is, unarmed, and possibly also not under 
military command. Fox is not inclined to uphold this scruple. 
“It is a great mercy of the Lord to subject the Governor’s mind 
so much by his power and truth that he will permit you to watch 
in your own way, without carrying arms, which is a very civil thing, 
and to be taken notice of.” Friends in Jamaica and Barbadoes would 
welcome such a concession, and indeed they had offered to watch 
“against the Spaniards,” but because they refused to bear arms 
they had been severely punished and fined. Fox adds, “ So where 
Friends has the Government, as in Rhode Island, . . . Friends 
was willing to watch in their own way, and they made a law that 
none should be compelled to take arms .”3 Friends, he continues, 
watch in their plantations against robbers, and they have no scruples 
concerning the town watch against housebreakers and fire-raisers. 
They even go before the magistrates about the wrongs they have 
suffered. “ You are not to be the revenger, but he is the revenger ; 

. . . we must be subject to that power, and own that power, not 
only for wrath, but for conscience’ sake ; which is for the punish¬ 
ment of the evildoers and the praise of them that do well. For 

1 Besse, ii. 353. 

* Epistles , No. 319. The letter was approved by the Six Weeks Meeting. 

3 Vide ch. xiii. p. 331. 


THE WEST INDIES 31 7 

if any should come to burn your house or rob you, or come to 
ravish your wives and daughters, or a company should come to fire 
a city or town, or come to kill people ; don’t you watch against all 
such actions ? And won’t you watch against such evil things in the 
power of God in your own way ? You cannot but discover such 
things to the magistrates, who are to punish such things ... and 
if he does it not, he bears the sword in vain.” “ You know,” he adds, 
that masters of ships, and Friends, have their watches all night 
an ^ they watch to preserve the ship, and to prevent any enemy 
or hurts that might come to the ship by passengers or otherwise.” 
Here Fox quotes some New Testament passages concerning watching, 
and then quaintly spiritualizes them. “ So here is the goodman 
watching against sin and evil without, and the spoiler and thief with¬ 
out . . . and here is also a watching against sin and evil within, and a 
waiting to receive Christ at His coming. And as there is a shutting 
the outward doors to keep out the murderers and the thieves, and 
a bolting and locking of them out, so there is a shutting up and 
locking the doors of the heart.” Therefore, if Indians come, “ let 
them come from home or come from abroad,” it is the duty of 
Friends to watch. “Neither judge one another about such things, 
but live in love which doth edify.” 

It is clear that Fox in his peaceable English county, far enough 
even from the Dutch guns which ten years before had echoed up 
the Thames, did not realize the atmosphere of war and alarms amid 
which Friends lived in the West Indies. Or, if he realized it, he 
did not face the difficulty. It was not the only time in the history 
of the Society that the “ unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea ” of the 
Atlantic bred misunderstanding or want of sympathy. The West 
Indian Friends knew from their own experience of the barbarous 
revenge the white man was wont to take in answer to the barbarous 
cruelties of Indian attack or negro rising. It was not the actual 
advice given by Fox, but his commentary upon it, which seemed 
to open the way to an almost unlimited share by Friends in services 
auxiliary to war. Curiously enough, with the exception of another 
time of difficulty in the West Indies, to be mentioned later, this 
Epistle has seldom been used as a weapon of argument in the 
perennial controversy between Friends and the military authority. 
If the Nevis Quakers followed the advice of Fox, apparently the 
compromise was not accepted. A few months later Governor 
Stapleton reported to the Committee at home that “ the Quakers’ 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


318 

singularity and obstinancy have given me more trouble than any 
others. Not contenting themselves with a peaceable enjoyment 
of what they profess in their families, as others are well satisfied 
therewith, the Quakers do meet, and have once disturbed a minister, 
for which they were imprisoned and fined by due course of law, 
since [then] they have been quiet. They will neither watch nor 
ward, not so much as against the Carib Indians, whose secret, 
treacherous, and most barbarous inroads, committing murders, 
rapes, and all other enormities, discourages the planters in the 
Leeward Islands more than any one thing, knowing how they 
have been made use of in the last war by our neighbours.” 1 

There were, in fact, sixteen Quakers imprisoned on account 
of the militia in 1676, and the year 1677 saw the passage of an Act 
to prevent the landing of Quakers on the island, “ that are not satis¬ 
fied with the enjoyment of the liberty of their conscience and of 
his Majesty’s laws, but are daily seducing others of the King’s subjects 
from their allegiance, by persuading them not to bear arms for the 
defence of the rights of his Majesty and subjects, contrary to all 
laws.” The Friends indignantly replied that they were loyal subjects, 
and never seduced any from allegiance. “ But if any are convicted 
by the Spirit of God in their own hearts, that fighting with any 
carnal weapon to the destroying of any man, although their 
greatest enemy, be sin, then to him it is sin, if he do it.” 2 Next 
year “Friends at Nevis in America” {sic) wrote an account of 
their troubles to the Meeting for Sufferings, and simultaneously 
the Governor bewailed to the Committee for Plantations the 
defenceless state of the islands. While the Spaniards protected their 
possessions with a squadron of thirteen ships of war, at Nevis, “ for 
naval strength, there is nothing but the Quaker ketch,” and even 
that in a few weeks’ time had sailed for home. It is not clear whether 
the Quaker boat had been commandeered by Government from 
its original owners, or whether Colonel Stapleton intended to seize 
and arm it in case of need. But after this date there are few records 
of fine or imprisonment. Either succeeding Governors proved more 
lenient, or the majority of eligible Quakers had left the island. 
Antigua was captured by the French in 1664. The commander 
forced the inhabitants to take an oath of allegiance to Louis XIV, 
under threat of deporting the men, and leaving their families to the 

1 Col. Entry Book , xlvi. 185. Cal., 1675-6, p. 502. 

9 Besse, ii. 362-3. 


THE WEST INDIES 319 

mercy of the Indian. There were four Quaker householders on the 
island, and these men refused to swear. The English Governor, 
Colonel Buckley, who had himself taken the oath argued with them, 
“ but they stood firm, saying they could not swear, what suffering 
so ever might follow.” At length the French Governor himself 
came to them and said, “ I believe you are honest men, and if you 
will promise not to fight against the King my master, during this 
war, I will take your words.” To which one of them replied : 
“We desire to be rightly understood in this our promise, for we 
can freely promise not to fight against the King of France nor for 
him ; nor indeed against the King of England, nor for him ; for 
we can act no more for the one than the other in matters of war. 
Only, as the King of England is our natural prince, we must own 
allegiance to him.” 1 The Governor was satisfied by this explanation, 
but when Antigua was restored to the English at the peace of Breda, 
in 1667, Friends again endured the familiar round of fines, imprison¬ 
ment, and even beatings. A certain Colonel Mallet was the chief 
persecutor, going to such lengths that at times the Governor inter¬ 
vened. On one occasion, when he was trying to force some 
Quakers to perform drill, his lieutenant refused to assist him, 
saying that he could not judge of a man’s conscience, and was 
unwilling to meddle with them. Bermudian Quakers, also, in this 
Restoration period, suffered under the local Militia Acts. But after 
1688, as the British possessions gradually settled under the Protestant 
Succession, Friends in the West Indies enjoyed greater liberty of 
conscience. 

Yet the islands can never have proved a very congenial home 
for them. The journals of Thomas Story and Thomas Chalkley, 
both well-known Quaker ministers, draw lively pictures of the 
danger and excitement of a voyage in the West Indies during the 
early eighteenth century. In 1709, after four false alarms of French 
privateers, 2 the vessel in which Story was returning from Jamaica 
to America, was actually captured and taken to Hispaniola, where 
Story, with the help of his schoolboy Latin, was able to hold friendly 

1 Besse, ii. 370 foil. 

* On the voyage from Antigua to Barbadoes the Captain at sight of a suspicious 
vessel “ made ready for defence $ having twelve men, thirty guns, and suitable 
ammunition. They knew I would not be active in such defence, but desired me 
to keep with the doctor and make him what help I could, if any should be wounded, 
which I was very free to have done.” Night fell, however, and they lost sight 
of the other ship. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


320 

intercourse with the French officials and a Jesuit priest. The latter, 
“ a good old man,” even devoted a Sunday sermon to the Quakers, 
saying (as it was reported to Story) “ that we were an innocent 
religious people, differing in many points, both of doctrine and 
practice, from all other Protestants, and seemed to have a right 
faith in Christ; only we seemed too diffident concerning the Saints, 
our duty to them, the Church’s power, and the like. But, in the 
end, exhorted his people to keep firm in their own religion, and, 
as this people were thus cast among them, to show their Christianity 
and respect to them. And so they generally did, more than could 
have been expected ; and several of them said, though too lightly, 
4 The Quaker preacher had converted their minister.’ ” 

The French Governor, Le Sieur de Laurens, invited Story 
to Sunday evening supper at his house and listened with great interest 
to an account of Pennsylvania, wishing for peace and an opportunity 
to visit the State. The wish moved Story to a short discourse on 
peace and war, well fortified with New Testament quotations. 
The Governor answered that “ it was not they that desired the war, 
for they were generally much hurt by it, but the King, and that 
as God had set a king over them, they were bound in conscience 
to obey him ; who was answerable for all the evil, if any, and not 
they.” This theory of passive obedience reminded Story of the 
doctrine preached in England in a “ former reign.” He met it with 
a reference to Nebuchadnezzar and his Hebrew ministers, but 
the Governor replied, “ T. hat was a heathen King, who commanded 
idolatry, but ours a Christian, and gave only Christian commands, 
so ought to be obeyed.” To this Story made the obvious retort 
that the Christianity of the command depended rather on its character 
than on the religion of the King. The Huguenots, for example, 
had felt it a Christian duty to resist his laws “ to the loss and sacrifice 
of many of their lives, and others were fled, and many thousands 
of them in the Queen of Great Britain’s dominions to the great 
depopulating and weakening of his kingdom.” The Governor bore 
no malice for this home thrust, but admitted that liberty of conscience 
was no unreasonable thing,” and showed his Quaker guest the Con¬ 
fessions of St. Augustine and the Imitation of Christ , in both of which 
Story found “ many good sayings.” Eventually the Englishmen were 
taken by the privateers to Martinique and Guadaloupe. There they 
were freed under a flag of truce after about three months’ captivity. 1 

1 I>tf e of Thomas Story , 174.7, pp. 441 foil. 


THE WEST INDIES 321 

Thomas Chalkley made several visits to the West Indies, 
showing himself as true to his peace principles there as in 
Pennsylvania. In 1707? while the Quaker-owned ship in which 
he travelled was being chased off Barbadoes by a French privateer, 
the seamen “cursed the Quakers, wishing all their vessels might 
be taken by the enemy, because they did not carry guns in them : 
at which I was grieved and began to expostulate with them : ‘ Do 
you know the worth of a man’s life ? ’ ‘ Lives ! ’ said they, ‘ we 
had rather lose our lives than go to France.’ ‘ But,’ said I, ‘ that 
is not the matter : had you rather go to hell than go to France ? ’ 
They, being guilty of great sins and wickedness, and convicted 
in their own consciences, held their peace, and said no more about 
the poor Quakers.” 1 

Later, in a similar strait off Jamaica, this time on an armed 
vessel, Chalkley was jeeringly asked what he thought of Quaker 
principles now. He quietly replied that he was as willing to go to 
heaven as his questioners, and that he would pray for the souls of 
the crew. In the midst of the noise and hurry he prayed earnestly 
for a favourable wind, “ that we might be delivered from the enemy 
without shedding blood.” The wind did change, and they sped far 
out of sight of the privateer. 

Twenty years afterwards, when he visited Barbadoes, he met 
an old acquaintance, not a Friend, who reminded him of a peace 
argument on his former visit. After Chalkley had given “ Love 
enemies ” and other Scriptural grounds for his own belief and 
practice, his hearer had asked “ If one came to kill you, would you 
not kill rather than be killed ? ” I told him, “ No ; so far as I knew 
my own heart I had rather be killed than kill.” He said, “ That 
was strange,” and desired to know what reason I could give for it. 
I told him, “ that I being innocent, if I were killed in my body, 
my soul might be happy ; but if I killed him, he dying in his wicked¬ 
ness would consequently be unhappy ; and if I were killed, he might 
live to repent ; but if I killed him, he would have no time to repent 
So that, if he killed me, I should have much the better, both in respect 
of myself and to him.” This reasoning, which is entirely character¬ 
istic of Chalkley, and has been amplified at times by later Friends,* 
made a deep impression on the listener, who, as he now told the 
Quaker, as a result left off the sword he wore “ and his business also,’ 

1 Chalkley, Works, p. 55. 

3 Vide the reply of Joseph Hoag to the American General, p. 419. 

21 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


312 

which was presumably connected with weapons of war. “ When 
we parted,” Chalkley writes, “ we embraced each other in 
open arms of Christian love, far from that which would hurt or 
destroy.” 1 

On another visit in 1734 Chalkley lodged with a Dutchman 
at St. John’s. His two sons had lately been killed in a negro rising, 
“ for which their mother and sisters were in bitter mourning,” and 
Chalkley was filled with silent horror at “ the bloodshed and vast 
destitution which war makes in the world.” 2 

Even in the early part of the eighteenth century, however, 
the number of Friends in the West Indies had much diminished. 
The story of their - decline can be traced through the bulky 
manuscript volumes of Epistles Sent and Epistles Received, 
which contain the annual intercourse between London Yearly 
Meeting (or its permanent Committee, the Meeting for Sufferings) 
and the brethren across the seas. From Bermuda in 1703 John 
Richardson wrote “there is few Friends here, but two men,” 
and the last letter from Jamaica in 1708 also bewails their small 
number. In 1705-6 Antigua sent a vivid account of the alarm of 
a French fleet, which passed them by, but cruelly ravaged Nevis 
and St. Kitts, and in 1707 the few Friends left on Nevis wrote a 
last letter to London in grateful acknowledgment for gifts in relief 
of “our great suffering by the French.” Letters on both sides in 
those unsettled days often miscarried, and the isolated Friends had 
a hard struggle. Misfortunes in trade and moral delinquencies 
brought scandal at times upon the Society, particularly in Tortola, 
whence the final Epistle in 1763 reaches the depths of gloom. For 
many years Barbadoes remained the chief centre of the Society 
and was even prosperous enough to send at times substantial contribu¬ 
tions to the charitable funds administered by English or Pennsyl¬ 
vanian Friends. The attraction of the mainland amid the troubles 
of continuous wars seems to have proved irresistible. A great drought 
in 1713, and epidemics of smallpox and yellow fever also played 
their part in driving Friends away from the West Indies. The 
Society in Antigua, during its last days, passed through one crisis 
which developed out of the perennial difficulty in reconciling the 
claims of the State with the Quaker interpretation of the teachings 
of Christianity. The appearance of the French fleet in 1705 had 
evidently frightened the authorities of the island into active prepara- 
1 Chalkley, Worts, p. 207. * Ibid. f p. 265. 


THE WEST INDIES 


323 

tions for defence, but they honestly tried to respect the scruples 
of Friends by assigning them not to direct service in the militia, 
but to subsidiary work. Hereupon there arose a division of opinion 
in the Society. The older Friends, remembering bygone days of 
persecution, advised the acceptance of this compromise, while some 
young men declared that the work was inconsistent with their 
principles. Another difficulty concerned the payment of a church 
rate included in the general poor rate, and the dispute was so sharp 
that in 1708 two Epistles to London crossed the Atlantic, one signed 
by the Clerk of the Meeting, Jonas Langford, and the other by 
the dissentient young men Friends. 1 

The official document sets forth that the alternative service 
offered to Friends, in view of bearing arms or building forts, was 
“ the public service of the island, that is to say, building of watch- 
houses, clearing common roads, making bridges, digging ponds. 

. . . Also they are willing to accept of us without arms only 
appearing at their training place, and also that we should go 
messages from place to place in the island, in case of danger by an 
enemy. These things they require of us, and we have performed 
them, for which we have been excused from bearing arms.” But 
now these young Friends say that such work is “all one” with 
actual military service. The same kind of scruple had arisen a genera¬ 
tion before, when Friends hesitated about “planting potatoes for 
them that watched and builded the forts,” and the matter was 
referred to “ dear George Fox and the Meeting in London for 
advice . . . and their advice was they were innocent things and 
might be safely done.” It was on this occasion that Fox sent his 
letter to Nevis Friends, to which Langford and his party have referred 
for guidance. In any case (they conclude, after explaining the 
poor-rate dilemma) they would welcome a ruling from London, 
as these scruples have produced more strife and contention in the 
Meeting than has been known in the past forty years. 

The Epistle from the younger Friends, which follows, is a 
remarkable and interesting declaration. They, too, they explain, 
would welcome a decision on these points, which to them are matters 
of conscience. They then state very clearly the actual nature of the 
“ public service ” imposed on them. 

“ Whereas it is often ordered by the Government that fortifica¬ 
tions are to be built, for the accomplishments whereof ponds for 
* In D. Epistles Received, ii. 65 foil. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


324 

holding water (for the use of these persons who defend these places 
and inhabit them) are also to be dug, now the same Friends do think 
that if the Government will excuse them from carrying of great 
guns to these places, and digging of trenches, building of bulwarks, 
and such warlike things, and instead thereof employ them in digging 
these ponds, building of bridges, repairing of highways, building 
of guard-houses, and such things, they can freely do them, yet we 
do think that in such a case to dig ponds or the like to be excused 
from carrying of guns, etc., is not bearing a faithful testimony against 
such things, but below the nobility of that holy principle whereof 
we make profession, and (at best) but doing a lawful thing upon an 
unlawful account and bottom. Yet we are very willing to dig ponds, 
repair highways, and build bridges, or such convenient things when 
they are done for the general service of the island and other people 
at work therein equal with us, and not to balance those things which 
for conscience’ sake we cannot do.” 

On the question of appearing unarmed at the militia muster, 
one Monthly Meeting has agreed with them that the practice is 
inconsistent with Friends’ principles. “And as concerning alarms 
or invasion of an enemy, we are free to give notice to the magistrate 
of any approaching danger or be serviceable as far as we can at such 
times, in going to see what vessels may be off or giving them informa¬ 
tion in such things, though as to carrying of permits for vessels of war 
‘ quietly to pass ’ such and such forts, when we are sensible their 
commissions are to kill, sink, burn, and destroy the enemy, we are 
scrupulous and not free in that case. And as concerning watching, 
we are free to do it in our own way, ” that is, unarmed, as Fox had 
recommended to the Friends of Nevis. The signatures to the letter 
are “John Brennan, John Darlow, junior, Henry Hodge, William 
Haige, John Butler, John Fallowfield.” 

The answer returned by the Meeting for Sufferings in 1709 1 
is instinct with that spirit of timidity and caution, combined with 
a genuine loyalty to the tolerant English Government, which marked 
Quaker leadership in the first half of the eighteenth century. The 
writer (possibly John Askew, who is the first name among the 
signatures) barely mentions the receipt of the young Friends’ letter, 
while he speaks warmly of “our ancient worthy Friend Jonas 
Langford.” A wish that “ condescension in the spirit of love ” may 
reconcile the disputants, is followed by approval of “ the intentions 
1 In D. Epistles Sent, ii. 122. 


THE WEST INDIES 325 

of love and favour granted by the magistrates ” of Antigua. In its 
view of what military works are possible for the Quaker conscience 
the Epistle goes beyond the concessions of the elder Antiguan Friends. 
“ As for digging ditches and trenches and making walls, they are 
of like use with doors, locks, bolts, and pales, to keep out bloody 
wicked and destructive men and beasts ; and to give warning and to 
awake our neighbours by messengers or otherwise to prevent their 
being destroyed, robbed, or burnt, doubtless is as we would desire 
should in the like nature be done and performed to us.” 

The most serious feature of the Epistle is its general inaccuracy 
of reference. It gives in inverted commas, as if a direct quotation, 
a summary of Fox’s Nevis letter, which, whether intentionally or 
not, almost stiffens it into an argument for military defence against 
attack, and while referring to the services rendered by Seller and 
other pressed Friends in naval battles, omits to describe their stead¬ 
fast resistance to any compromise of principle. An account of the 
help given by Hornould in rowing, when the boat in which he was 
passenger escaped an enemy ship, ends : “ the relation whereof the 
Friend gave in our Yearly Meeting and was well liked by Friends.” 
There is no hint that the “ relation ” included an account of the 
peace meeting which Hornould held with the crew and his fellow 
passengers. 1 It should be Friends’ aim to show themselves to 
Governors and magistrates, not as “ a self-willed and stubborn 
people,” but ready to do the will of the authorities in anything 
“ that is not an evil in its own nature, but service and benefit to 
our neighbours.” 

The question of the poor rate is handled with greater sympathy, 
possibly because the same dilemma was already pressing upon them 
in England. Among the names appended to this temporizing docu¬ 
ment are those of George Whitehead and of Fox’s son-in-law, Thomas 
Lower. How the advice was received in Antigua cannot be known, 
for intercourse seems to have been broken off for some reason, and 
the next letter from the island is dated 1718. In it John Brennan 
wrote sadly of “a poor handful of people dispersed in a dark and 
barren island.” Smallpox and the great drought had driven Friends 
away, among them Henry Hodge and his family to Pennsylvania, 
and William Hague and his family to Carolina. Ten years later 
the few remaining Friends “are inclinable to leave this island 
on account of the sickliness of the place,” and after 1728 London 
1 Ante , p. 179-80. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


326 

hears no more from Antigua. If the Quaker records of the island 
had been preserved, we might have known whether the conscientious 
objectors agreed to work on “ trenches and bulwarks,” or whether 
it was a recurrence of the old difficulty that drove Henry Hodge 
and William Hague from their homes. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 

The first Quaker visitors to America were the two women, Mary 
Fisher and Ann Austin, who came in 1656 to Barbadoes and 
thence to Boston. The Puritan officials and ministers, who had 
already heard ill reports from England of the new movement, 
seized the women, imprisoned them under the harshest conditions 
for five weeks, burned their books by the public hangman, and at 
last shipped them back to Barbadoes. In spite of this welcome and the 
most stringent laws against the entrance of Quakers to Massachu¬ 
setts, they continued to come and to suffer under the “ new 
Inquisition,” as it was bitterly called by Fox and others, until in the 
years 1659 and 1660 three men and one woman were hanged under 
a law recently passed, making it a capital offence for Quakers once 
banished to return to the colony. Edward Burrough and other 
English Friends appealed to Charles II to stop this “vein of 
innocent blood.” In response he issued an order to the Governor 
of Massachusetts, under which many Friends were released from 
prison, and one saved from the death sentence. It was not until 
1681, however, that the savage laws against Quakers were formally 
suspended. Massachusetts was their cruellest persecutor, but in the 
other Puritan colonies, in aristocratic Virginia, and even in tolerant 
Maryland, they were almost as unwelcome. The Dutch colonies 
of the New Netherlands also promulgated harsh laws against them, 
until in 1663 the colonial officials were rebuked by a wise and far¬ 
sighted letter from the Directors of the West India Company in 
Amsterdam. In this they reminded their deputies that Holland’s 
tradition of religious liberty had made her a refuge for all nationalities 
and that her colonies should follow the same path. “ The consciences 
of men, at least, ought ever to remain free and unshackled.” There 

was little opportunity to try the new policy, for in 1664 the colony 

327 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


328 

passed into English hands as the provinces of New York and New 
Jersey. In spite of hostile legislation, Quakerism made its way. 
During Charles II’s reign Meetings were settled in all these colonies, 
and before the end of the seventeenth century the organization 
into Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings was fully adopted. 1 

In one colony Friends found not merely tolerance, but a congenial 
home. Rhode Island, both on the mainland and on the island itself, 
was tenanted by exiles for conscience’ sake, who founded their 
settlements on principles of absolute religious freedom. Roger 
Williams, driven in 1635 from Salem for preaching against persecu¬ 
tion, established Providence to be “ a shelter for persons of distressed 
conscience.” Two years later a settlement was founded on the 
island of “ Aquiday ” (now Rhode Island) by the so-called 
“ Antinomians ” or “ Hutchinsonians,” who had revolted against 
the strict Calvinism of New England, and as they gradually formed 
an organized Government, the assembly of citizens in 1641 passed 
the memorable law “ that none be accounted a delinquent for 
doctrine.” Roger Williams, though the enemy of all persecution, 
was no friend to Quaker doctrine, but some of the settlers seem, 
even thus early, to have held views very near to those preached 
later by Fox and his followers. They “ would not wear any arms,” 
opposed an ordained ministry, and in Portsmouth, at least, met 
together to “ teach one another, and call it prophesie.” 2 

When, in 1657, a sma h band of English Quakers visited the 
island, these men and women accepted their teaching at once, and 
many of the leading citizens of the colony were among its first 
Quakers. From the New England authorities came requests that 
Rhode Island should follow their example and stamp out the 
contagion of the new doctrines, but both Governor and Assembly 
steadily refused to violate liberty of conscience. “ Freedom of different 
consciences,” the Assembly stated in its reply, “ was the principal 
ground of our charter.” If the Quakers should refuse to submit 
to the duties required of citizens, “ as training, watching, and such 
other engagements as are upon members of civil societies, for the 
preservation of the same in justice and peace,” then the Assembly 

1 Rhode Island Yearly Meeting, 1661 (later New England Yearly Meeting) ; 
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1672 ; Virginia Yearly Meeting, 1673 ; Burlington 
(New Jersey) Yearly Meeting, 1681 (later Philadelphia Yearly Meeting) ; New 
York Yearly Meeting, 1696 j North Carolina Yearly Meeting, 1698. 

* Vide authorities quoted in Rufus Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies , 
pp. 21-5. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 329 

would refer for advice to the “ supreme authority in England,” 
by whom, they understood, the sect had been tolerated. This was 
a rebuff to New England, which was forced to watch the hated 
people growing in power, and even holding high office in Rhode 
Island. A Quaker was first chosen Governor in 1672, after which 
for many years the control of the colony was in Quaker hands. 

In 1674 the proprietors of New Jersey sold half of that colony, 
afterwards known as West New Jersey, to two Friends who soon 
transferred it to William Penn and others of the Society. The new 
proprietors drew up a constitution which ensured full liberty of 
conscience, and, as Penn said, “ put the power in the people.” 
There was a definite intention that this thinly populated province 
should prove a new home for persecuted Quakers from England. 
The proprietors did all in their power to encourage emigration, 
and before 1681 fourteen hundred Friends had settled there. In 1680 
East Jersey was for sale, and was purchased by Penn and other 
Friends, who included Robert Barclay, and some leading 
Scots. The latter were anxious to find a place of refuge for 
the persecuted Covenanters, and this division of the province was 
less markedly Quaker than West Jersey. In 1702 the proprietors 
surrendered the government of the united colony to Queen Anne. 
In the decade between 1670 and 1680 Carolina was twice visited 
by William Edmundson and once by George Fox. Among its 
scattered settlers there was little religious organization ; they welcomed 
the teaching of these travelling missionaries, and before long Meetings 
were established. A Friend, John Archdale, played an important 
part as Governor of the Colony. Lastly, in 1681, the Royal grant 
of Pennsylvania and the “ counties upon Delaware ” (the modern 
State) to William Penn gave him a better opportunity than he had 
had in the Jerseys for his “ holy experiment ” of a Quaker Common¬ 
wealth. 

From this brief summary it will be seen how the position of 
Friends varied in the several colonies, from a persecuted minority 
in some to a powerful majority in others. Where they were in a 
minority, they suffered for their refusal of military service as they did 
for other nonconformity to the practices of the society which sur¬ 
rounded them. It was, no doubt, partly this refusal which for so 
long shut out the Quakers in New England from all exercise of the 
franchise or holding of public office. The current of policy at home 
in England at times embroiled the provinces in war with their French 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


33° 

or Dutch neighbours, while in the debatable land between Indian 
settlements and colonial outposts the fires of savage warfare ever 
smouldered. These spasmodic outbreaks of war were always the 
signal for the enforcement of fines and imprisonments upon the 
Quakers, who would neither train nor fight ; in the intervals of 
peace the punitive clauses of the militia laws were sometimes allowed 
to lie unused. 

In the provinces where Friends had political power, their trials 
were of a different character. There was no question of persecution 
for the holder of conscientious scruples against war, the problem 
was rather that of the limits of compromise—how far one part 
of the British dominions was bound to shape its policy in accordance 
with that of sister colonies or of the home Government, and how 
far a Quaker Government must conform to a demand for war 
preparations. 

In Rhode Island this latter difficulty was raised in an acute 
form, since there Quakerism as the predominant form of belief 
was grafted upon the existing Government, and many of its chief 
officers joined the Society. The result was that the individual Quaker 
conscience was unmolested, and that the Quaker influence in the 
administration and Assembly was always exerted on the side of peace, 
but that, when military preparations were imposed upon them by 
the demands of the home Government, a Quaker, if he happened to 
be Governor, did not refuse to take such steps. This compliance was 
the price which they paid for the charter granted in 1663. It was 
not a very dignified or consistent position, and it gradually became 
untenable, but the frequent re-election of Quaker Governors shows 
that the citizens on the whole were not dissatisfied. Nicholas Easton, 
one of the original “ Hutchinsonians,” who became a Friend about 
1657, was first Deputy-Governor and then Governor in the years 
between 1666 and 1674, a period which covered the two wars 
between England and Holland. 

Rhode Island was uncomfortably near New York, and it was 
feared that the Dutch (during their brief re-conquest in 1673) 
would stir up Indian tribes against the settlements in the mainland. 
Both in 1672 and 1673 the Quaker Governor and his mainly 
Quaker Council passed Acts, in obedience to orders from England, 
putting the colony into “a posture of defence.” These were 
followed by a law making provision for the support of maimed 
soldiers, and those “ whose dependency was on such as are slain,” 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 


33i 

and another for the relief of the conscientious objector—the first 
of its kind. Much of this Act of 1673 is a long statement of the 
scriptural and other arguments against war, which comes oddly 
from men busied with military preparations. As the inhabitants 
of the colony stand for liberty of conscience, they must needs forbear 
“ to compel their equal neighbours against their consciences to train 
to fight and to kill.” The crucial paragraph reads as follows :— 

“ Be it therefore enacted, and hereby it is enacted by his 
Majesty’s authority, that no person (within this colony) that is or 
hereafter shall be persuaded in his conscience that he cannot or 
ought not to train, to learn to fight, nor to war, nor kill any person 
or persons, shall at any time be compelled against his judgment 
and conscience to train, arm, or fight, to kill any person or persons 
by reason of or at the command of any officer in this colony, civil 
nor military, nor by reason of any by-law here past or formerly 
enacted j nor shall suffer any punishment, fine, distraint penalty, 
nor imprisonment, who cannot in conscience train, fight, nor kill 
any person nor persons for the aforesaid reasons.” But the exempted 
were not to be idle. Another clause empowered the magistrate 
to require of them civil duties, such as the evacuation of the sick 
and aged and valuable property from threatened districts, the 
keeping watch and ward unarmed, and similar pieces of work. 1 

All other militia laws, even in the Revolution, exempted Friends, 
with the exception of one passed in 1677 under a reaction from 
Quaker government, which stated that “ some under pretence of 
conscience hath taken liberty to act contrary, and make void the 
power, strength, and authority of the military, so necessary to be 
maintained.” The warlike party, however, only held office for 
a year, and thereafter until 1685 the power was continuously in 
Quaker hands. The cause of the reaction had been the sufferings 
of the colonists on the mainland round Narragansett Bay, during 
“King Philip’s War,” the fierce Indian rising which terrified 
New England from 1675 to 1677. “ Left to themselves the Rhode 
Island colonists could have maintained peace, for their Indian policy 
was wise, humane, and enlightened, and gained for them the 
confidence and love of their Indian neighbours.”* But, in addition 
to the inevitable discontent engendered as the white men’s settle- 

* Rhode Island Colony Records , ii. 495 5 see also Arnold, History of Rhode 
Island . 

* Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies , p. 175. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


332 

ments expanded over the Indian territories, acts of real injustice 
and the treatment of the Indians as an inferior race by the New 
England settlers had inflamed their proud and revengeful tempers. 
Nevertheless, the Rhode Island Government, while disclaiming 
all responsibility for the war, made an effort to avert it. John Easton, 
the Deputy-Governor, son of Nicholas Easton, and four other 
Quakers, came unarmed to the quarters of “ King Philip,” the great 
Indian chief, on Narragansett Bay, and spent a day pleading with 
him and his warrior council for a settlement. 1 The Indians gave 
them a catalogue of their grievances against the English, such as 
the unrestricted sale of spirits, and the rejection of Indian evidence 
in cases where the white man was the aggressor. “ We told them 
that our desire was that the quarrel might be rightly decided in the 
best way, not as dogs decide their quarrels. . . . They owned 
that fighting was the worst way, but they inquired how right might 
take place without fighting. We said by arbitration. They said 
that by arbitration the English agreed against them, and by arbitra¬ 
tion they had much wrong. 

“. . . We said they might choose an Indian king, and the 
English might choose the Governor of New York ; that neither 
had cause to say that either were parties to the difference. They 
said they had not heard of this way. We were persuaded that if 
this way had been tendered, they would have accepted.” But the 
deputation from Rhode Island could not satisfy the Indians that 
the rest of New England was willing to adopt such a course, and 
there was no result from the visit except an assurance by the Indians 
of their friendly feeling towards the Island. A few days afterwards, 
June 1675* war broke out. The Rhode Island Government took 
up the attitude that it was an unjust and unnecessary conflict for 
which they were in no way responsible. They refused to assist the 
other colonies, or even at first to send an armed force to their own 
settlements on the mainland ; but urged the inhabitants of those 
towns to take refuge on the island, where they would be supported 
during the war. The other New England Governments had joined 
in a “ compact ” to crush the Indian menace, and bitterly reproached 
Rhode Island for holding aloof. When the war was over, the 
General Court of Plymouth sent home a complaint to Charles II. 
“ The truth is the authorities of Rhode Island, being all the time 
of the war in the hands of the Quakers, they scarcely showed an 
1 Narrative of Easton quoted in Quakers in the American Colonies , pp. 182-3. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 


333 

English spirit either in assisting us their distressed neighbours or 
relieving their own plantations on the main. But when by God’s 
blessing upon our forces the enemy was routed and almost subdued, 
they took in many of our enemies that were flying before us, thereby 
making profit of our expense of blood and treasure.” 1 

What “ profit ” the Rhode Islanders made is not clear, for while 
some of the Indian leaders were court-martialled and shot at New¬ 
port, the Assembly refused to sell the other captive Indians on their 
territory into life-long slavery, which was the policy of the other 
colonies towards those whose lives were spared. 2 3 4 One real service 
was rendered by the Rhode Island authorities to the Colonial troops. 
After a bloody battle on Narragansett Bay, in the winter of 1675, 
the colonial wounded, one hundred and fifty, were brought across 
to the island, where Governor Coddington, a Friend, made 
arrangements for their treatment, although some “ churlish Quakers ” 
objected even to this connection with the war .3 This encouraged 
the New England authorities to ask again for military help. 
Coddington replied in a short letter and a long “ postscript.” The 
letter ran thus :— 

“ The Governor and Council of the Massachusetts and 
Committee of the United Colonies writing to us do give us thanks 
for transporting their soldiers and provisions, and that sloops trans¬ 
ported their wounded, and desired us to let out a hundred or two 
hundred soldiers, we answered you denying so to do, and gave you 
our grounds.” 

The postscript calls attention to a recent “ day of humiliation ” 
in Boston for the sins which had called down the war upon the 
colonists. One was, the neglect to suppress the Quakers and their 
meetings, and “ a law was simultaneously passed imposing a fine 
of five pounds upon every person who should attend a Quaker 
Meeting, with imprisonment at hard labour upon bread and water .”4 
No wonder that the Quaker Governor of the colony where none 
was “ accounted a delinquent for doctrine ” commented :— 

1 Colonial Papers, xli. 16. C.O. i. 41. Calendar of State Papers (Colonial), 
1677-80, p. 115. 

J Kelsey, Friends and the Indians, p. 56. By a vote of the Assembly in 1676, 
indentured Indian labour for a term of years and under various restrictions was 
sanctioned “ as if they had been countrymen not in war.” 

3 Authorities in Quakers in American Colonies, p. 186. 

4 Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, p. 187. Colony Records of Massa¬ 
chusetts, v. 59. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


334 

“You say you have apostated from the Lord with a great 
backsliding : to which I do consent ; so great (as) hardly to be 
paralleled, all things considered. . . . Our houses are open to receive 
your wounded and all in distress, we have prepared a hospital for 
yours, but you a house of correction for all that repair to our 
Meetings. Your ministers with us have not been molested, ours with 
you have been persecuted. Is this a time for you to set up iniquity 
by a law ? ” x 

The appeals of the settlers at Providence, Warwick, and the 
other mainland towns were harder to resist. The towns were deso¬ 
lated by the war, and the refugees in Newport could not look with 
calm on the destruction of their homesteads across the water, while 
those who refused to flee were in still worse plight. The Assembly 
decided in April 1676 that “there appears absolute necessity for 
the defence and safety of this colony.” John Cranston, a non¬ 
member though connected with Friends, was chosen to organize 
the militia and “ to kill, expulse, take and destroy all and every 
the enemies of his Majesty’s colony.” 2 The commission was given 
by Governor Coddington and at the same time a garrison of eight 
men sent to help Providence. Yet Walter Clarke, a Quaker who 
had been most stubborn in resisting the pleas from the mainland, 
was chosen Governor this year, just before the war ended with the 
death of King Philip. William Edmundson, who was travelling 
among American Friends this year, found at Newport that “great 
troubles attended Friends by reason of the war, which lay very 
heavy on places belonging to that quarter without the island, the 
Indians killing and burning all before them ; and the people who 
were not Friends were outrageous to fight. But the Governor, 
being a Friend (one Walter Clarke), would not give commissions 
to kill and destroy men .”3 

It was in 1677, when the war was over, and the full extent 
of its ravages became apparent, that the elections went against the 

1 Easton’s Narrative, Appendix. 

* A curious report to the English authorities in April 1675 gave an optimistic 
account of the excellence of the Rhode Island Militia, with their “ buff-coats, 
pistols, hangers, and crosslets.” “ All men that are able bear arms except some 
few Anabaptists and the Quakers, who will not bear any ” (Col. Papers , xxxiv. 
iv. 66. C.O., i. 34. Calendar , 1675-6, p. 221). 

3 Edmundson, Journal, p. 82. During this year of 1676, Edmundson 
travelled through regions where the Indian war was raging. He says : “ I 
committed^my life to God who gave it, and took my journey,” even holding 
peaceful intercourse with a band of Indians in full war-paint. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 335 

Quakers and the new Assembly passed the Militia Bill, already 
mentioned. Yet the reaction was short-lived. From 1678 to 1714 
Quakers were almost continuously in office, except during an attempt 
from 1686 to 1689 by James II to annul the charter, annex the 
colony to Massachusetts, and govern both by one of his creatures, 
Sir Edward Andros. Throughout these years the local authorities 
opposed a quiet but firm resistance to the demands of Andros, refusing 
to give up their charter, and organizing self-government for the 
towns, when the General Assembly was dissolved. The Quakers 
of the colony in 1686 sent an earnest plea to James that the 
conscientious scruples to “ bear arms or learn war any more ” 
might be respected. 1 There is no evidence that they were molested. 
Under William and Mary the colony returned to its old privileges, 
and its succession of Quaker governors. In the term of one of these, 
John Easton, King Philip’s friend, a fleet of French ships seven 
in number appeared off the Narragansett coast and were bombarding 
the shore (it was at the time of the war between William and Louis) 
when two Rhode Island sloops made a spirited attack upon them 
and drove them off in much disorder. 

During these latter years of Quaker government there were 
animated disputes with the Governors of New York and 
Massachusetts over the colony’s right to control its militia, and 
with the English Home Office over matters of trade and navigation. 
All these questions, the authorities of the colony maintained, were 
by the charter left in their own decision and control. On the other 
hand, charges were made to the home authorities that Rhode Island 
was unwilling to take punitive measures against the pirates who 
infested American waters at the end of the seventeenth century. 
The Quaker politicians were even accused of a corrupt and profitable 
alliance with the pirates, but no proof was ever brought forward 
of this. As the population of the island grew in the eighteenth 
century, the Quaker influence waned, although several members 
of the Wanton family held the office of Governor. Their ancestor 
Edward Wanton had been converted to the faith by witnessing 
the martyrdon of the Quakers on Boston Common in 1659.2 He 
must have been a youth at the time, for his son, John, was born 

1 Col. Papers , lviiii. 3 6. C.O., i. 60. Cal, 1685-8, 232. 

1 The tradition was that he was a member of the guard, and “ came home 
from the execution, gready changed, saying, as he unbuckled his sword : ‘ Mother, 
we have been murdering the Lord’s people, and I will never put a sword on 
again ’ ” (Jones, Quakers in American Colonies , p. 201). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


336 

in 1672 and was Governor of Rhode Island from 1733 to his death 
in 1741. During his last term of office the “ War of Jenkin’s Ear ” 
broke out between England and Spain, which involved the Spanish 
and English settlements in the West Indies and on the American 
continent. John Wanton, although a leading Friend, had to carry 
out many military duties, which alarmed the corporate conscience 
of his Society. A Committee was appointed to “ deal ” with him, 
but he maintained that as Governor he had no choice except to 
fulfil his legal obligations. “ I have endeavoured,” he added, “ on 
all previous occasions, as on this, to do my whole duty to God 
and to my fellow men, without doing violence to the law of my 
conscience.” 1 As he died during this year, it is not certain 
whether the Meeting would have taken any further action in the 
case. Some of the Friends of Rhode Island were leaders in the 
struggle against the taxation claims of the English Crown and 
Parliament in the decade before the outbreak of the Revolution. 
Stephen Hopkins, the most distinguished of these men, was nine 
times Governor and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. 
But during the same years, stirred up by John Woolman, the Rhode 
Island Yearly Meeting (representative of all New England Friends) 
was setting itself to free the Society from the reproach of slave¬ 
holding. In 1773 it resolved “ that we do no more claim property 
in the human race” Stephen Hopkins was the owner of one slave, 
whom he steadily refused to free, and in this year he was, in 
consequence, disowned. Yet, when in 1774, the Yearly Meeting 
appointed a Committee to secure anti-slavery legislation from the 
assembly, Stephen Hopkins brought in and carried the required Act. 

In the New England colonies, amid all their other sufferings, 
Friends did not escape those for refusal to bear arms. Indian raids 
on the outskirts of the settled territory were a constant menace, 
and Indian wars were frequent. The Puritan pioneers could not 
understand neighbours who went about unarmed, who even in 
war-time often refused the protection of a “ garrison,” and who 
would take no part in measures of retaliation. It did not add to 
the popularity of a Quaker settler that he was able to establish 
amicable relations with the red men, and that he could live in his 
cabin unmolested, while his neighbour’s home went up in flames 
and the neighbour’s life was worth nothing if he strayed outside 
the garrison. These “ garrisons ” were houses or groups of houses 
1 Quoted in Quakers in American Colonies , p. 204. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 337 

roughly prepared for defence, surrounded by a loopholed palisade, 
at which stood ever an armed guard. Here the old men, women, 
and children took refuge on the first alarm, while the majority 
of the able-bodied sallied out from it for punitive expeditions. 
The early Epistles to London from Rhode Island Yearly Meeting 
often speak of the troubles due to the “ barbarious Indians.” From 
Thomas Chalkley and Thomas Story we gain more intimate 
accounts of their own personal experiences in these wars. 

In 1699 Story was travelling on religious visits through New 
England, at a time of especially ferocious warfare. He kept a close 
watch on the conduct of New England Friends under the test : 
“ I did not hear of any of our Friends that carried arms when abroad 
or in their business, but two, and these the Indians had killed, 
but most went into garrisons to lodge in the nights, and some not, 
but trusted in the Lord ; and we kept clear of all garrisons, always 
lodging without their bounds and protection of their guns and 
arms.” 1 Another Indian war broke out in 1703—4. Anne and 
her Government had been drawn into the war of the Spanish 
Succession, and in revenge the French stirred up their native allies 
against the English colonists. Story, on his travels through 
Massachusetts, found the countryside panic-stricken. “ It was a 
dismal time indeed in those parts ; for no man knew, in an 
ordinary way, when the sun set, that ever it would arise upon him 
any more ; or, lying down to sleep, but his first waking might be in 
eternity, by a salutation in the face with a hatchet, or a bullet from 
the gun of a merciless savage, who from wrongs received (as they 
too justly say) from the professors of Christ in New England, are 
to this day enraged, as bears bereaved of their cubs, sparing neither 
age nor sex.”* As in 1699, some Friends took refuge in the 
garrisons, and some even carried arms, but the “ faithful and true ” 
remained quietly in their homes. Story, though he visited the most 
disturbed parts, would never lodge in a garrison. At first he doubted 
whether to hold meetings in places to which Friends must travel 
by dangerous paths. But by an “ invisible Power ” he was encouraged 
to continue his work, the meetings were held to the great comfort 
of those who attended, and no lives were lost on the journeys. He 
found that the more timid Friends, who sheltered in garrisons and 
carried arms, “ to the dishonour of Truth,” were trying to justify 
themselves by condemning those who remained faithful in their 
1 Life of Thomas Story , 1747, p. 197. * lbid. t p. 315. 

22 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


33» 

principles. Story, therefore, who was always ready to preach a 
peaceable gospel, “ had much to say in every meeting on that subject,” 
and no doubt used the fate of some of these waverers as a text. 
The facts are told both by Story and Chalkley. The latter wrote 
in his Journal for this year, on the subject of the Indian wars :— 

“ Among the many hundreds that were slain, I heard but of two 
or three of our Friends being killed, whose destruction was very 
remarkable, as I was informed (the one was a woman, the other 
two were men). The men used to go to their labour without any 
weapons, and trusted to the Almighty, and depended on His provision 
to protect them, it being their principle not to use weapons of war to 
offend others or to defend themselves. But a spirit of distrust taking 
place in their minds, they took weapons of war to defend themselves ; 
and the Indians, who had seen them several times without them, 
and let them alone, saying, They were peaceable people and hurt 
nobody , therefore they would not hurt them , now seeing them to have 
guns and supposing they designed to kill the Indians, they therefore 
shot the men dead.” Story tells of a similar, but apparently distinct, 
case where two young Friends were walking together, one with 
a gun and one without. “ The Indians shot him who had the gun, 
but hurt not the other. And when they knew the young man they 
had killed was a Friend, they seemed sorry for it, but blamed him 
for carrying a gun : for they knew the Quakers would not fight 
nor do them any harm, and therefore, by carrying a gun, they took 
him for an enemy.” 1 The woman already mentioned was killed 
on the same day as this young man. She had lived in a lonely spot 
with her daughter, son-in-law, and their family. At first she 
remained quietly there during the danger, but in time what Chalkley 
called “ a slavish fear ” so preyed upon her mind that she induced 
them to move with her to a neighbouring town, Hampton, where 
there was a “ garrison ” in which they could take refuge in case 
of a sudden attack. The daughter, Mary Doe, left v an account of 
the whole episode in a quaint and touching letter to her children, 
which Chalkley quotes in full. In it she told them that, in the 
neighbourhood of the garrison, “my dear mother . . . found 
herself not at all easy, but, as she often said to many, that she felt 
herself in a beclouded condition, and more shut from counsel than 
she had been since she knew the Truth, and, being uneasy, went 
to move to a Friend’s house that lived in the neighbourhood ; and 
* Story, Life, p. 316. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 339 

as she was moving, the bloody cruel Indians lay by the way and 
killed her. O, then, how did I lament moving ! ” Thereafter the 
daughter persuaded her husband to return to the lonely dwelling, 
but he was uneasy in his mind “ till our dear friend Thomas Story 
came and told him, he did not see that I could have a greater 
revelation than I had. And (this) satisfied my husband so well that 
he never asked me more to go, but was very well contented to stay 
all the wars ; and then things were made more easy, and we saw 
abundance of the wonderful works and of the mighty power of the 
Lord, in keeping and preserving of us, when the Indians were at 
our doors and windows, and at other times ; and how the Lord put 
courage in you, my dear children. Don’t you forget it, and don’t 
think that as you were so young, and because you knew little, so 
you feared nothing ; but often consider how you staid at home 
alone, when we went to Meetings, and how the Lord preserved 
you and kept you, so that no hurt came upon you.” 1 

Of this, the home of Henry Dow, or Doe, Story said it was 
“ a place of as much seeming danger as any being within pistol-shot 
of a great swamp or thicket, where Indians formerly inhabited, 
and there I lodged, where there was neither gun nor sword, nor 
any weapon of war, but Truth, faith, the fear of God, and love, 
in a humble and resigned mind, and there I rested with consolation.” 

Another Friend in this district told Chalkley that he was 
working in his field when some Indians called him, and he went 
to them. They told him that they had no quarrel with the Quakers, 
for they were a quiet, peaceable people and hurt nobody, and that 
therefore none should hurt them. But they complained bitterly 
of the Presbyterians who “ had taken away their lands and some 
of their lives.” Chalkley, after recounting the barbarous revenge 
the Indians took for these wrongs, adds : “ But we travelled the 
country and had large meetings, and God was with us abundantly, 
and we had great inward joy in the Holy Ghost in our outward 
jeopardy and travels. The people generally rode and went to their 
worship armed, but Friends went to their meetings without sword 
or gun, having their trust and confidence in God.” 

This Indian war was a by-product of the struggle with France, 
in which the Government of New England was bearing its part 
by an invasion of Canada. To recruit this expeditionary force they 
passed a draft law, under which any defaulters were to be fined, 
1 Chalkley, Journal , pp. 41-6. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


340 

“and refusing to pay the fine, should be imprisoned, and sold or 
bound to some of the Queen’s subjects within that colony, for so 
long a time as by their work they might pay their fines and charges.” 
This law at once brought some young Quakers into prison, and 
revived the old New England bitterness against them. One preacher 
gave a fast-day sermon on the three judgments of God, which were : 
the Indian war, the failure of the crops, and the increase of 
Quakerism ! Two young men of Bristol, Massachusetts—John 
Smith and Thomas Maccamore—were conscripted under this law, 
fined five pounds, and imprisoned for its non-payment. 1 They 
had already been in prison some two months when Thomas Story, 
who was on a religious visit to Rhode Island, took occasion to cross 
the bay with other Friends and hold a meeting with them in the 
prison. The meeting was held again a fortnight later, when the 
company “ were favoured with a good time in the Presence and Love 
of God together.” But Story was anxious to obtain for them material 
relief as well as spiritual comfort, and his negotiations show that 
the conscientious objector was an inconvenient phenomenon to 
the colonial officials of Queen Anne’s day. With Thomas Cornwell, 
a Friend from Rhode Island, Story visited Colonel Nathaniel Byfield, 
one of the magistrates. At first they had an uncomfortable reception. 
“ He was very boisterous, reproaching Friends in general as a sort 
of people not worthy to live upon the earth, particularly those of 
Rhode Island and New England, who would not go out nor pay 
their money to others to fight against a common enemy so 
barbarous as are the Indians ; wishing us all in the front of the 
battle until we had learned bettter ; charging us with many errors 
and heresies in religion by the lump, instancing only in refusing 
to fight, and believing in sinless perfection in this life.” The 
Friends took up the challenge, and the Colonel soon grew weary 
of the argument, for he “ flounced ” about the room, saying : “ He 
could not stay, for there were a hundred men waiting for him, and 
he must be going.” He calmed down, however, and invited the 
Friends to dine with him, to continue the discussion. As he repeated 
his condemnation of those who would not fight, Story asked, “ seeing 
he was so keen of war, why was he not among the rest in the expedi¬ 
tion then on foot against the Indians ; for, if he had courage to his 
stature, he might do something more than merely talk against the 
infidels.” He had no commission, he said ; but Story retorted that, 

1 Story, Life, pp. 266-311. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 341 

doubtless, he could have one for the asking. The Colonel took 
the quip good-naturedly, and after the meal the three walked back 
to Bristol together. As they went, the harassed official declared 
that “ it might be well if we (P riends) were all settled in a place 
by ourselves, where we could not be troublesome unto others by 
our contradictious ways.” But Story, with something of the sublime 
confidence of Fox, replied that even so, “ more would spring up 
in our places. For what would the world do if it should lose its 
salt and leaven ? ” Their companion was not unnaturally “ a little 
surprised ” at the answer, but turned the subject by telling them 
the young men were to be sent to Boston to labour at the fort until 
they had worked off their fines. The Friends argued that this 
was not the penalty assigned by the law, but the Colonel’s mind 
was made up and he left them. “ After this ” (adds Story) “ we 
went to the prison to see the young men, and acquainted them that 
we could find little ground to expect any favour ; at which they 
seemed altogether unconcerned, being much resigned to the will 
of God at that time.” Next day the trial began, with a revival of 
the old hat controversy. When this was settled by their headgear 
being taken from the Quakers, the judge (Colonel By field again) 
said humorously that : “ If he thought there were any religion 
in a hat, he would have the largest he could purchase for money.” 
Then he asked the prisoners the reason of their obstinancy. 

“ The young men modestly replied, It was not obstinacy, but 
duty to God, according to their consciences and religious persuasions, 
which prevailed with them to refuse to bear arms or learn war. 
But the judge would not, by any means, seem to admit there was 
any conscience in it, but ignorance and a perverse nature ; 
accounting it very irreligious in any who were personally able, and 
legally required, to refuse their help now in time of war against 
enemies so potent, and so barbarous as the French and Indians.” 
Then he charged the Society with inconsistency in paying taxes, 
and refusing fines. This brought Story to his feet, with a request 
to be allowed to explain the distinction, which was granted. 
Beginning “ with the example of Christ himself,” he distinguished 
a general tax from “ a law that directly and principally affects the 
person.” But the judge interrupted with the remark that Story 
was preaching a sermon. The court postponed its decision, and the 
elder Friends made acknowledgment of the courtesy they had received. 
“ Our hats being delivered us, we accompanied the young men back 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


342 

to the prison, where, being set down together, the Presence of the 
Lord was sensibly with us, and I had some things to say concerning 
faithfulness unto God, and the great reward of it here and 
hereafter.” 

The sentence was as foretold, and Story, with other Friends, 
went to Boston to lay the case before the Governor, Colonel 
Dudley. He was courteous, saying (in reply to Story’s explanation 
of the peace position—“ those who are in wars are not in the life 
nor doctrine of Christ ”) that “ he was no disputant about religion,” 
but that, in the existing state of public opinion, he could not override 
the Justice’s decision. But, said Story, the decision was against 
the law, and the Governor on that ground should release the men. 
“ The country ” (he replied) “ would be about his ears if he should 
do that j but it is a harmless thing to work at the castle ; they need 
not fight there.” They cannot work at it, Story answered, for it 
is an “erection for war.” The Friends were forced to leave 
unsatisfied, but eventually, though the young men were taken to 
Boston, they were not sent to the Castle, but left at liberty “ to 
be ready upon call.” Story had several other opportunities during 
this visit to New England of stating his views on war. He recounts 
at great length a dispute on war in the island of Canonicut with 
a Baptist teacher who had informed him “ with some ostentation ” 
that his two sons were serving in the expedition to Canada. The 
argument ranged over the whole field, the distinction between the 
civil and the military power, the contradiction of war with the 
spirit of Christ—“ the whole tenor of his doctrine and example 
of life was for peace and love, and in that love and the power and 
divine virtue of it he yielded up his life ”—and the necessity that 
individuals must begin the practice of peace before the whole world 
is convinced of their principles. 1 “ And as for us, who do not fight 
with carnal weapons, we meddle not with you who do, otherwise 
than to persuade you to leave that off and be enlisted under the saving 
banner of the Prince of Peace ; to believe in the divine light of 
the Son of God ; to come out of the Spirit of this world, in which 
is all trouble, into the Spirit and Kingdom of Christ, in whom there 

1 One of Story’s arguments, apparently a favourite one, as he repeated it on 
another occasion, was that the Jews crucified Christ in the fear that if his teaching 
spread they could raise no forces for a patriotic struggle against the Romans. 
He based this theory on John xi. 48, which more naturally refers to the people’s 
belief in Christ as King of the Jews ” and the dread of a sudden rising on behalf 
of such a pretender. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 343 

is perfect peace ; which if ye will not do, we must leave you to 
fight one with another, until you are weary.” His opponent could 
find little to answer, and they “ parted friendly,” which, Story says, 
was his aim in every dispute, as he wished to produce conviction, or 
at least understanding, rather than conquest. 1 

The New England law still remained severe, and the Epistles 
to London frequently mention sufferings for the “ Malisa.” In 
1710 the Governor of Boston was “ kind,” and discharged several 
prisoners. Next year there was another expedition to Canada, and 
the Yearly Meeting of 1712 recorded the imprisonment of four young 
men who refused to serve. Two, who were in confinement for three 
months, seem to have been forced to accompany the expedition, 
but were “ not abused during the time of their voyage.” 3 The 
other two were imprisoned in Boston Castle, and thence forced 
on board a transport, where they underwent such hard usage that 
one of them, John Terry, afterwards died. This same Yearly 
Meeting informed English Friends that although the “ barbarious 
Indians ” had murdered many that past year in the eastern parts 
of New England, yet not one Friend had fallen a victim .3 In the 
Seven Years War, and especially at the time of the Louisburg 
Expedition in 1758, Friends endured heavy distraints owing to 
their refusal to hire substitutes for the campaign. In certain cases 
the sums charged were so excessive that the legislature, on a petition 
from the sufferers, examined the matter and in the end returned 
to them the money illegally exacted. 

In the colony of New York, Friends also had their full share 
of suffering for “ not learning war,” as they phrased it in a letter 
to London in 1706. The respectful protest the Friends at Flushing 
forwarded in 1672 to the Governor of New York is especially 
interesting from its description of the refusal of all part in warlike 
activities as a long-standing principle of Friends. “Whereas it 
was desired of the country that all who would willingly contribute 
towards repairing the fort of New York would give in their names 

* Story, Life, pp. 3 6 4~7- . ^ 

> Minutes of Rhode Island (New England) Yearly Meeting, 1712. Quoted 
in Quakers in the American Colonies , p. 150. 

3 About 1725 . . . there are records in the minutes of Philadelphia Yearly 
Meeting of a collection of nearly a thousand dollars taken up for John Hanson 
“ of the eastern part of New England, whose wife, four children, and a servant 
were carried off by the Indians and he had to ransom them at a great price ** 
(Kelsey, Friends and the Indians , p. 73). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


344 

and sums, and we whose names are underwritten not being found 
on the list, it was since desired by the High Sheriff that we would 
give our reasons unto the Governor, how willing and ready we have 
been to pay our customs, as country rates and needful town charges, 
and how we have behaved ourselves peaceably and quietly amongst 
our neighbours, and are ready to be serviceable in anything which 
doth not infringe upon our tender consciences, but being in a measure 
redeemed of wars and stripes we cannot for conscience’ sake be 
concerned in upholding things of that nature as you yourselves 
well know. It hath not been our practice in old England since we 
were a people.” 1 

While New Jersey was under its Quaker proprietorship there 
was naturally no trouble for tender consciences, and even under 
Queen Anne, Friends were exempted from the militia training, 
if certified as recognized members of the Society. It was a time 
of sudden alarms of a French invasion, and four young men of 
Burlington Meeting had to confess they had gone out with arms 
to search for some escaped prisoners, although their intentions were 
not bloodthirsty. “It seemed best for those that had guns to take 
them, not with a design to hurt, much less to kill man, woman, or 
child ; but we thought that if we could meet these runaways, the 
sight of the guns might fear them.” 3 In war-time New Jersey 
Quakers suffered like other Friends from imprisonments and 
distraints, while their comrades of the same Yearly Meeting, across 
the borders of Pennsylvania, were, of course, immune. 

Quakerism in New Jersey during the eighteenth century was 
adorned by the life of John Woolman, one of the uncalendared 
saints of the Christian Church. This “ serene and beautiful spirit,” 
to quote Whittier’s discerning eulogy, was the chief instrument 
in the gradual process by which the Society of Friends cleared itself 
from the reproach of slave-holding and slave-dealing. By this time the 
practice of buying imported slaves was generally condemned in the 
Society, at all events, among Northern Friends, but the well-to-do 
held slaves as a matter of course. They were treated as human 
beings rather than chattels, and in many cases given religious 
teaching ; slavery was in its mildest form in a Quaker household ; 
but none the less it was slavery. John Woolman was a humble 
tradesman of Mount Holly in New Jersey. Being somewhat better 

1 Quoted in Quakers in the American Colonies, p. 250. 

« Quoted by A. M. Gummere in Quakers of the American Colonies , p. 393. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 


345 


educated than his neighbours he was employed by them to write 
their legal documents, and it was his refusal to do this in cases relating 
to the transfer of slaves that marked the opening of his life-long 
battle for the oppressed. This was in 1742. In 1746 he first visited 
Friends in Virginia and Carolina, where he was greatly affected 
by what he saw of the evils of Southern slavery. It was largely 
through his earnest pleading that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting 
of 1758 adopted a minute condemning slavery, and urging that 
Friends should “steadily observe the injunction of our Lord and 
Master : ‘ To do unto others as we would they should do unto us,’ 
which it now appears to this Meeting would induce such Friends who 
have any slaves to set them at liberty—making a Christian provision 
for them according to their ages.” This minute practically made 
slave-holding an offence against the corporate morality of the Society. 
But persuasion and entreaty were tried before discipline. John 
Woolman and others who felt with him gave themselves up to the 
task of visiting and pleading with slave-holding Friends. Few could 
resist his gentle eloquence. In twenty years’ time the Philadelphia 
Yearly Meeting had no slave-holding members. The Yearly 
Meetings of the other States also had their consciences awakened, 
partly through the labours of John Woolman. By the end of the 
Revolutionary War slavery had practically vanished from the Society 
of Friends. In almost all cases members had willingly freed their 
slaves, and the total number of disownments was very small. 

To Woolman not only slavery, but conduct as a whole and in 
detail, was to be judged by what he called the “ pure reason.” 
Society ideally was a harmony, and each individual was responsible 
for the discords which marred it. Selfishness and greed lay at the 
roots, not only of slavery, but of the inequalities of wealth and 
poverty, of war, and of all other social evils. “To labour ’ (he wrote 
towards the end of his life) “ for a perfect redemption from this 
spirit of oppression is the great business of the whole family of 
Christ Jesus in this world.”* In a striking passage he pressed home 
his argument with regard to war. “ When that spirit works which 
loves riches, and in its working gathers wealth and cleaves to 
customs which have their root in self-pleasing, whatever name it 
hath, it still desires to defend the treasures thus gotten. This is 
like a chain in which the end of one link encloseth the end of another. 
The rising up of a desire to obtain wealth is the beginning ; this 
* A Word of Remembrance to the Rich , sect. xii. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


346 

desire being cherished, moves to action ; and riches thus gotten 
please self; and while self has a life in them it desires to have them 
defended. Wealth is attended with power, by which bargains and 
proceedings contrary to universal righteousness are supported ; 
and hence oppression carried on with worldly policy and order, 
clothes itself with the name of justice and becomes like a seed of 
discord in the soul. And as a spirit which wanders from the pure 
habitation prevails, so the seeds of war swell and sprout and grow 
and become strong until much fruit is ripened. Then cometh the 
harvest spoken of by the prophet which 4 is an heap in the day of 
grief and desperate sorrows.’ Oh that we who declare against wars 
and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in the light, 
and therein examine our foundation and motives in holding great 
estates ! May we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our 
houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have 
nourishment in these our possessions.” 1 This was written towards 
the close of his life ; in earlier years he had faced the question of 
the direct responsibility for war as it affected him. At the time 
of the French and Indian campaigns of the Seven Years War he 
decided, after much heart-searching, that he could not pay the taxes 
which went to their supports “To refuse the active payment of a 
tax which our Society generally paid was exceedingly disagreeable, 
but to do a thing contrary to my conscience appeared yet more 
dreadful.” Woolman devotes some pages of his Journal to a gentle 
explanation why he felt constrained to differ even from the early 
Friends in this matter. “ From the steady opposition which faithful 
Friends in early times made to wrong things then approved, they 
were hated and persecuted by men living in the spirit of this world 
and, suffering with firmness, they were made a blessing to the Church 
and the work prospered. It equally concerns men in every age to 
take heed to their own spirits ; and in comparing their situation 
with ours, to me it appears that there was less danger of their being 
infected with the spirit of this world in paying such taxes than is 
the case with us now.” In eighteenth-century America, particularly 
in Pennsylvania, Friends held civil office which might at times 
involve the performance of duties connected with war. If they 
saw other Friends contentedly paying war taxes, their own scruples 
in regard to these duties might be allayed. “ Thus, by small degrees, 

1 A Word of Remembrance to the Rich , sect. ix. 

» John Woolman, Journal. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 


347 

we might approach so near to fighting that the distinction would 
be little else than the name of a peaceable people.” Twice again 
during the war he had to meet a time of trial. In August 1757 
the militia of his county, Burlington, was called out, and a force 
sent to relieve the English holding Fort William Henry, New York. 
Soon orders came to draft another force of men, to be held under 
marching orders. A considerable number of Friends were called up. 
John Woolman at this time was just thirty-seven, and it is not clear 
from his account whether he was liable to service, but he certainly 
was in close touch with the conscripts. 1 Some, he says, went away 
to avoid service, others agreed to serve ; “ others appeared to have 
a real tender scruple in their minds against joining in wars, and were 
much humbled under the apprehension of a trial so near.” These 
latter informed the captain that they could neither serve nor hire 
substitutes, and they were allowed for the time to return home, 
although he would not release them from their obligation to service. 
They were not, however, called up, since the fort had fallen and 
the French, after destroying it, had marched away before the first 
draft could be of service. With his innate fairness of mind Woolman 
was struck by the difficulty which the conscientious objector presented 
to the military authorities. Some officers, he wrote, felt it painful 
to trouble sincere and upright men on account of scruples of conscience, 
and were willing to treat them with consideration. “ But where 
men profess to be so meek and heavenly minded and to have their 
trust so firmly settled in God that they cannot join in wars, and 
yet by their spirit and conduct in common life manifest a contrary 
disposition, their difficulties are great at such a time. When officers 
who are anxiously endeavouring to get troops to answer the demands 
of their superiors, see men who are insincere pretend scruple of 
conscience in hopes of being excused from a dangerous employment 
it is likely they will be roughly handled.” From this Woolman 
drew the moral of “ the advantage of living in the real substance 
of religion, where practice doth harmonize with principle.” 

A few months later (April 1758) troops were billeted at Mount 
Holly, and Woolman was required to accommodate two soldiers. 
“ The case being new and unexpected, I made no answer suddenly, 
but sat a time silent, my mind being inward. I was fully convinced 

x He says : “ This was such a time as I had not seen before ; and yet I may 
say, with thankfulness to the Lord, that I believe the trial was intended for our 
good—and I was favoured with resignation to Him.” This seems to imply that 
he was in the draft. 


348 FRIENDS ABROAD 

that the proceedings in wars are inconsistent with the purity of 
the Christian religion ; and to be hired to entertain men who were 
then under pay as soldiers was a difficulty with me. I expected they 
had legal authority for what they did ; and after a short time I 
said to the officers, if the men are sent here for entertainment, I 
believe I shall not refuse to admit them into my house, but the 
nature of the case is such that I expect I cannot keep them on hire ; 
one of the men intimated that he thought I might do it consistently 
with my religious principles. To which I made no reply, believing 
silence at that time best for me. Though they spake of two, there 
came only one, who tarried at my house about two weeks, and 
behaved himself civilly. When the officer came to pay me, I told 
him I could not take pay, having admitted him into my house in 
a passive obedience to authority. I was on horseback when he spake 
to me, and as I turned from him, he said he was obliged to me— 
to which I said nothing ; but, thinking on the expression, I grew 
uneasy ; and afterwards, being near where he lived, I went and 
told him on what grounds I refused taking pay for keeping a soldier.” 

In Virginia the legislature had early to deal with the Quaker 
objection. Finding that “divers refractory persons” refused to 
attend the Militia exercises, they passed a law in 1666 inflicting 
a fine of an hundred pounds of tobacco for each offence. 1 The 
Epistles from Virginia Yearly Meeting to London, and the records 
of the Monthly Meetings show that in many cases Friends under¬ 
went heavy distraints in lieu of these fines. In 1711 they wrote to 
England that some of their number had been “ imprest to make 
fortifications,” and were in prison for their refusal. This was an 
attempt on the part of Governor Spotswood to force those whom 
he considered shirkers and cowards to serve the State in some way. 
A few did help to build the forts, but the Yearly Meeting of 
Virginia declared that these “ had given away their testimony,” 
and must make amends to their Monthly Meetings. In 1726/7 
William Pigott, an English Friend, held some meetings in Virginia, 
to one of which “ came a justice, who had never been at a Friends’ 
Meeting before. . . . We parted lovingly, and next day a Friend 
was set at liberty who had been imprisoned for not appearing in arms.” 
Samuel Bownas, another English Friend, found prisoners on the 

1 Hening, Statutes at Large of Virginia , ii. 246. See Weeks, Southern Quakers 
and Slavery, pp. 170 foil. For the Epistles to London, see Epistles Received 
(in D.), for example, 1693, 1704, 1711, 1727. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 349 

same account in Virginia, when he visited the colony a few months 
later. 1 In 1738 there was an attempt at a relieving Act, by which 
Friends were exempted from personal service if they produced a 
substitute or paid a fine. 2 But the consciences of most Friends did 
not allow them to take advantage of the provision. Next year the 
Yearly Meeting reported the sufferings as “very considerable,” 
including several cases of imprisonment. So matters went on for 
twenty years, although in 1742 the Meeting declared that many 
of those who administered the Act showed as much lenity “as we 
can reasonably expect.” But at the time of the Canadian and Indian 
Wars, which were the colonial share of the world struggle between 
France and England, the Assembly passed a series of Militia laws, 
followed in 1755 by a “draft” (or conscription) law for single 
men. In 1756 this was made more stringent. Every twentieth 
man eligible for the militia (or his substitute) was sent to fight on 
the frontier under “ Colonel Washington.” 3 Under this Act seven 
young men of the Society were forced into the army and carried 
to the frontier, but they did not waver in their testimony, and in 
a few months’ time they were released. This was Washington’s 
first encounter with the Quakers in war-time ; he was to find them 
a source of greater difficulty twenty years later. It is evident from 
the warnings given out by the Yearly Meeting that some Friends 
paid fines, and this is implied in the report given to the London 
Yearly Meeting in 1759. John Hunt had gone out to Pennsylvania 
in 1756 to advise Friends there in their political difficulties ; after 
their settlement he had travelled in the other colonies. “ In Virginia, 
particularly, he gives sorrowful accounts of the state of Friends, 
who are much degenerated from the primitive practices of the Society 
in many respects, and who, in his judgment, have suffered much 
from the keeping of negroes, and letting fall their Christian discipline ; 
but that in some places, especially in the back parts of that country, 
there was a virtuous, sober, and religious body of Friends who could 
not comply with their military preparations.” 

In 1766 Friends petitioned the Assembly for relief from the 
repeated militia fines, This they gained in some measure by an 
Act which exempted them entirely from training or the provision 
of arms in time of peace, though it maintained the old liability to 

* For the accounts of these Friends, see (London) Yearly Meeting MS., 
1728-9. 

* Hening, iii. 336. 


3 Ibid., vii. 9' 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


350 

service or fine in time of war. Thus they had a brief respite until 
the outbreak of the Revolution. 

Carolina made her first law to enforce military service in 1680, 
while the leaders of the “ Culpepper Rebellion ” were in power. 
Friends had held aloof from this movement, the aim of which was 
mainly to free the colony from the strict control of the English 
proprietors. In retaliation, the de facto Government enacted that 
those who refused to appear in arms at the muster should be fined 
“ at the pleasure of the Court.” In this year, however, John Archdale 
became, by purchase, one of the proprietors of the colony, where 
he resided from 1683 to 1686. This remarkable man was a native 
of Wycombe, Bucks, and according to its then vicar “ the chief 
gentleman of the village.” During the early part of Charles I I’t 
reign, he was Deputy-Govern or of Maine, but on his return home 
(about the year 1671) he was greatly influenced by the preaching 
of Fox and became a Quaker. During the latter part of his residence 
in Carolina, he was Acting-Governor, carrying out his duties with 
great acceptance. Naturally at this time the Quakers were un¬ 
molested, but he had hardly returned to England when, in July 
1687, the Meeting for Sufferings had under consideration a letter 
from Friends in Carolina detailing their troubles under a new 
Militia Act. “John Archdale gives account he has taken some 
care to get them relieved,” and other Friends were appointed to join 
him in a deputation to his fellow proprietors to see what further 
steps could be taken. The fantastic constitution devised by Locke 
was breaking down under the strain of actual working, and the 
trouble was increased by friction between the two divisions of the 
colony—North and South Carolina, which had been established 
in 1688. In a good hour the proprietors chose Archdale in 1694 
to be Governor and “ Admirall, Captain Generali and Commander- 
in-Chief of all the forces raised or to be raised both by sea and land 
within our said province.” The new Governor did not make much 
use of these mighty naval and military establishments, and his one 
piece of military legislation is characteristic. “ While administering 
a general military law, he secured a special Act passed March 15, 
1695/6, exempting Quakers from its provisions.”! In all other 
ways his Government won general approbation ; he settled local 
quarrels, harmonized the claims of proprietors and colonists, established 
a just policy towards the Indians, and prepared the way for the 
1 Weeks, Southern Quakers , p. 59. 


THE AMERICAN COLONIES 351 

naturalization of a body of French Huguenots who had taken refuge 
in Carolina. When he returned to England in 1696, the thanks 
of all the colonists followed him. “ By your wisdom, patience, and 
labour,” wrote the Assembly, “you have laid a firm foundation 
for a most glorious superstructure.” Soon after his departure the 
Assembly carried on the good work by granting liberty of conscience 
to all “ except only Papists ”—an exception which Archdale would 
not have approved. On taking his seat as Governor he had been 
allowed to affirm “ according to the form of his profession,” but 
after his return to England and his election as member for Wycombe 
in 1698 he was excluded from the House because he would not 
take an oath. 1 

The peaceful settlement, however, did not last long. Both in 
North and South Carolina, after the accession of Anne, Governors 
were appointed who were in strong sympathy with the desire of the 
English clergy, sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, to establish the Episcopal Church in the colony. As one-half 
of the Assembly in North Carolina were Quakers, according to 
the Governor’s estimate in 1703, this was not an easy task, but 
an Act of the home Government in 1704 imposing the oath of 
allegiance on all office holders was a timely aid. The Quakers were 
ousted in each colony from the Assembly and Council, and the 
political power passed into the hands of the Church. At the same 
time other concessions were revoked. A South Carolina law of 
1703 enacted that all inhabitants between the ages of sixteen and 
sixty were to be armed and regularly drilled, and fines were imposed. 
Until 1711 the Friends and other Dissenters of South Carolina 
struggled to regain their old rights. In 171c a new Governor was 
sent out to enforce the laws in favour of the Establishment. The 
Acting-Governor, John Cary, Archdale’s son-in-law, and some 
others, rose in rebellion, which was soon suppressed. The only 
Friend known to have been concerned in it was one Emmanuel 
Lowe, also Archdale’s son-in-law. 

The Yearly Meeting of 1711 appointed a Committee to deal 
with Lowe for “ stirring up a parcel of men in arms and going . . . 
in a barkentine with men and force of arms, contrary to our holy 

1 Rufus Jones, Quakers in American Colonies y pp. 340-50 ; Braithwaite, 
Second Period of Quakerism , pp. 412-14 ; John Archdale, A New Description of 
Carolina . . . With Several Remarkable Passages of Divine Providence during 
my time y London, 1707. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


352 

principle.” As a result, he was no longer counted eligible to represent 
the Society in its business meetings, “ having acted divers things 
contrary ^to our ways and principles.” 1 Friends, however, were 
identified by the Government with the rebellious party, and their 
political influence was entirely lost. The militia laws in both 
colonies seem to have been leniently administered, though Friends 
underwent some suffering for their refusal to fight in the Indian war 
of 1711—13. In North Carolina they tried to gain exemption at the 
outbreak of the Indian troubles in 1755. All those eligible for the 
militia were required to furnish their weapons, and the Council 
made the interesting suggestion that the Quakers should produce 
instead the tools of the pioneer settler—axe, spade, and hoe. This 
does not seem to have been adopted, for in 1758 Friends again 
petitioned for relief. Legally this was not obtained till 1771, when 
any Quakers called upon to serve were required to produce their 
certificates as members of the Society. In South Carolina during the 
late ’sixties the records show that some thirty members were 
disowned for taking part in the so-called “ War of the Regulation,” 
organized by Hermon Husband, an ex-Quaker. This “ war ” 
was a spirited resistance, led by the “ Regulators,” to some unjust 
and illegal methods of taxation. One Friend repented and gave 
his meeting a written condemnation of his error in “ aiding with 
a gun.” 

The episode was one of the first warnings of the coming struggle 
between the King and his colonial subjects, 

1 Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 166. 


CHAPTER XIV 


PENNSYLVANIA 

The persecution which Friends underwent in England after the 
Restoration naturally turned the thoughts of some to emigration. 
Yet, with the exception of little Rhode Island, the English colonies 
promised no safer resting place than the homeland. As a youth 
at Oxford, William Penn had dreamt of a future in the American 
settlements and, as has been seen, he took the opportunity offered 
by the sale of the Jerseys to experiment in a free commonwealth 
where men might govern themselves and worship as their conscience 
bade them. But the Jerseys were already partly settled, and the 
development of Penn’s ideas was hampered by existing claims and 
obligations. In 1681 a greater opportunity came before him, which 
he eagerly accepted. 

His father, Admiral Penn, at his death was a considerable creditor 
to the Crown (always embarrassed under Charles II) both for 
arrears of pay and for loans made to the Navy. In time, with the 
accumulated interest, the debt amounted to £16,000. James, Duke 
of York, was a friend of the Penns. He knew of Penn’s desire to 
find a home for his fellow-sufferers and of his experiments in the 
Jerseys. To Charles this suggested an ideal solution of the debt 
difficulty. By granting a large tract of wild territory in the New 
World he would at once clear his debt without the disagreeable 
expedient of parting with ready money, he would please Penn, 
and he would undoubtedly get rid of a considerable number of 
inconvenient subjects. Penn’s letters of the time show how seriously 
he took the grant. It was an age of constitution-making and of 
Utopias across the Atlantic. Locke tried his hand in Carolina with 
little success. Penn wished to found, not a mere asylum for the 
persecuted, but a free and self-governing State. “ The nations,” 
he wrote, “ want a precedent—and because I have been somewhat 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


354 

exercised about the nature and end of government among men, 
it is reasonable to expect that I should endeavour to establish a just 
and righteous one in this province, that others may take example 
by it—truly this my heart desires.” Again : “ I eyed the Lord in 
obtaining it. . . . There may be room there, though not here, 
for such an holy experiment.” 1 

Masses of records remain among the “ Penn MSS.” of the 
Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, showing the zeal 
with which the founder worked at his “ experiment.” These draft 
schemes are known to have been criticized by Algernon Sidney, 
the Republican, and Benjamin Furly, a Friend in Holland. In its 
final shape the “Frame of Government” consisted of twenty-four 
articles, the first of which granted liberty of conscience and worship 
to all “ who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and Eternal 
God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the World, and that 
hold themselves obliged in conscience to live justly and peaceably 
in civil society.” 2 The mildest code of penal laws and prison 
discipline conceived up to that time, under which treason and murder 
alone were subject to the death penalty (and these by an express 
reservation in the Royal Charter), the encouragement of arbitration 
rather than litigation, and the protection of Indian rights—these 
were the first-fruits of the deliberations of Penn and his Assembly. 

Peace and liberty were the foundation-stones of his constitution, 
and in regard to the former it is interesting to see the essential 
difference between his conceptions and those of the home Government. 
This cleavage of opinion was eventually to become so acute on 
the question of war that it led to the overthrow of Quaker control 
in Pennsylvania. Before the territory was granted to Penn the 
laws in force over such portions of it as were inhabited were those 
promulgated by Governor Nicholls on Long Island in 1664, after 
the acquisition of the New Netherlands from the Dutch. These 
were known as the “ Duke of York’s Laws,” and contained very 

1 Janney, Life of Penn , p. 175, letter to James Harrison. 

* Penn’s Frame confined office-holding to those “ who profess to believe in 
Jesus Christ.” After 1692 a test was imposed, by order of the Crown, which 
excluded Catholics, though liberty of worship was maintained for all. Penn more 
than once tried to restore his more liberal provision, but in vain. In the year of 
his death the law of capital punishment was assimilated to that of England, and 
thus about twelve more crimes were added to the list, but this reactionary proceeding 
was repudiated by the colonists when they gained their independence in 1776. 
The alteration in 1718 had been due to a political bargain ; in return for the 
extension of capital punishment, the right of Friends to affirm was recognized. 





PENN STL VANIA 


355 

specific military provisions. 1 Every male person above sixteen 
(except justices, constables, schoolmasters, ministers, physicians, 
masters of ships, “ constant herdsmen,” and the infirm) was liable 
under penalty to a short annual period of military training. Forts 
and ammunition were to be maintained. No man was to be 
compelled “ to go out of this jurisdiction upon any offensive wars, 
but only upon vindicative and defensive wars.” From service in these 
none could be exempt. 

By the grant to Penn these laws, of course, ceased to run in his 
province. But the Charter granted by Charles II made all due 
provision for the contingencies which, judging by the previous 
experience of English colonists, were only too likely to occur. After 
forbidding Penn or any inhabitant of the province to make war 
upon any State in friendly relations with England, it proceeded 
thus :— 

Andjbecause in so remote a country and situate near many 
barbarous nations, the incursions as well of the savages themselves 
as of other enemies, pirates, and robbers may probably be feared, 
therefore we ... do give power by these presents, unto the said 
William Penn ... to levy, muster, and train all sorts of men, of 
what condition or whatsoever born, in the said province of Pennsyl¬ 
vania, for the time being, and to make war and pursue the enemies 
and robbers aforesaid, as well by sea as by land, yea, even without 
the limits of the said province and, by God’s assistance, to vanquish 
and take them, and being taken, to put them to death by the law 
of war, or to save them at their pleasure, and to do all and every 
other act and thing, which to the charges and office of a Captain- 
General of an army belongeth, as fully and freely as any Captain- 
General of an army hath ever had the same.” The cautious Crown 
lawyers who framed the Charter could not foresee a State which 
was able to live in peace and amity even with “ barbarous nations,” 
but Penn had his policy clear in his mind and in his own “ Frame 
of Government ” the wordy particulars of this provision are 
represented by a simple clause. “ Ninth. That the Governor and 
Provincial Council shall at all times have the care of the peace and 
safety of the province, and that nothing be by any person attempted 
to the subversion of this frame of government.” It is characteristic 
of seventeenth-century Quakerism that rebellion is specifically 

i Charter and Laws of Pennsylvania , edited by George, Nead & McCamant, 
Harrisburg, 1879, pp. 30-42. 



FRIENDS ABROAD 


356 

guarded against whilst war is ignored. In Some Account of the 
Province of Pennsylvania , written in 1681 to attract intending 
settlers, Penn summarizes the charter for their benefit. It grants 
“ the power of safety and defence in such way and manner as to the 
said William Penn, etc., seems meet ”—a pretty clear indication 
to those who knew him that William Penn was not intending, 
“ with God’s assistance,” to enter upon the functions of a Captain- 
General. 

From 1682 to 1684 he was resident in his province, and when 
the boundary dispute with Maryland and the sufferings of Quakers 
in England called him back he left the power in the hands of a 
council with Thomas Lloyd, a Quaker, as President. 1 This arrange¬ 
ment lasted until 1688, and thus for the first seven years the conscience 
of the Quaker colonists was not put to any test. The three counties 
of Pennsylvania proper were mainly colonized by English Quakers, 
German Mennonites, and other peace-loving sects in sympathy 
with them.^ In the Delaware district the original Dutch and Swedish 
settlers were preponderant. But from 1682 to 1756 there was always 
a large Quaker majority in the Assembly, which was increased 
when, in 1703, the Delaware counties, after long friction, set up an 
independent legislature. In the Governor’s Council the Quaker 
element was also in the majority. The difficulty came when the 
authorities in England demanded military aid and military prepara¬ 
tions from the province. The position of Penn and other Friends 
was briefly that, while they considered all such preparations 
unnecessary, they would not interfere with, for example, the 
formation of a militia by those who were not principled against it. 
While James II was on the throne Penn was left with a free hand,3 

* For Lloyd and other Quaker politicians, vide Sharpless, Political Leaders 
of Provincial Pennsylvania , 1919. 

* # A band of German Quakers from the Palatinate, where they had been 
convinced by a missionary visit from William Ames, reached Pennsylvania in 1683 
under the leadership of Daniel Pastorius and settled in a district (now a suburb of 
Philadelphia) which acquired the name of Germantown. To them belongs the 
eternal credit of making, in 1688, the first clear protest to the Society against the 
inconsistency of Christian slave-holding. “ Ah ! do consider well this thing, 
you who do it, if you would be done in this manner, and if it is done according to 
Christianity ? ” (vide Appendix E. for the whole document). 

William Edmundson, a few years earlier, had protested as an individual against 
slavery in an Epistle to Friends in Maryland and Virginia. 

3 Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment, , p. 194. Penn’s cousin, Markham, his 
first deputy, was not a Quaker, but at that date (1681) Penn certainly hoped to 
reside permanently in the province. r 



PENNSTL FJNU 357 

but under the new rulers his position was more delicate. In 1688 
he began the practice of sending out a non-Quaker as Deputy- 
Governor, and Blackwell, an honest old Cromwellian soldier, was 
selected to fill the post. In 1689 the first trouble arose. There was 
fear of a French attack on the American colonies, and William III 
suggested that Pennsylvania should form a militia. Blackwell and 
the non-Quaker members of the Council urged this course, but 
the five Quaker members refused to sanction it. “ They told the 
Governor that if he desired a militia, he had power to create one 
and they would not interfere if it did not offend any consciences.” 1 * 3 
John Simcock saw “ no danger but from bears and wolves. . . . 
For my part I am against it clearly.” Samuel Carpenter, the richest 
man in the province, was as explicit. “ I am not against those that 
will put themselves into defence, but it being contrary to the judgment 
of a great part of the people, and my own too, I cannot advise the 
thing, nor express my liking for it. The King of England knows 
the judgment of Quakers in this case before Governor Penn had 
his patent. If we must be forced to it I suppose we shall rather choose 
to suffer than to do it, as we have done formerly.”* After a private 
conference they decided : “We would not tie others’ hands, but 
we cannot act.” Samuel Carpenter added : “ I had rather be ruined 
than violate my conscience in this case.” The French alarm passed 
away, and Blackwell was soon recalled by Penn, as in other respects 
he and the Council were at variance. 

At home Penn fell under suspicion of treason and conspiracy, 
though nothing was proved against him beyond his friendship for 
James II, which he frankly acknowledged. It does not seem that 
William III ever entertained serious doubts of his passive loyalty, 
but during the King’s absence abroad, in March 1692-3, Mary 
was prevailed upon to deprive him of his province, annexing it to 
that of New York under the government of Colonel Fletcher. 
The ostensible reasons for the change were (as given in Fletcher’s 
commission) that the affairs of the province were in disorder owing 
to Penn’s absence in England, and that there was no provision for 
defence, “ whereby the province and adjacent colonies were in 
danger of being lost to the Crown .”3 

1 Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment , pp. 194-5. 

* Carpenter had formerly lived in Barbadoes and endured heavy distraints 
for his refusal to bear arms (Besse, Sufferings , vol. ii). 

3 Charter and LawSy p. 539. 


358 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


The Council and Assembly remained loyal to Penn and showed 
little willingness to meet the requests of the new Governor, who 
entered Philadelphia with the unwonted sight of a military escort. 
Fletcher at once asked the Assembly, on behalf of the Crown, for 
a grant to defend the frontiers of New York against the French 
and Canadian Indians. After a long discussion money was voted 
for general purposes, on the understanding that it should not be 
“ dipt in blood.” “ They conceived,” they said, “ that this 
administration, though it suspended that of William Penn, was 
not to be at variance with the fundamental principles of the latter.” 
The Governor, in great dissatisfaction, wrote to the King, setting 
forth the impossibility of obtaining a war vote from the Quakers 
of Pennsylvania and urging the propriety of forming the colony 
together with New York, the Jerseys, and Connecticut into one 
province, as the only way to outvote Friends and to obtain the desired 
supplies. The Privy Council directed the Attorney-General to 
scrutinize the patent of William Penn, in the hope that some flaw 
might be found in it sufficient to make it void. 1 

Early in 1694 Fletcher again applied to the Assembly, not for 
a war grant, but for one to supply the frontier Indians with gifts 
of food and clothing “ to influence their continued friendship.” 
Even this was not granted, though the members offered a tax to 
defray some of the expenses of government. Fletcher dissolved 
the Assembly, denying its right to make its own appropriations. 
This dispute was more a matter of privilege than of principle, 
and Penn himself thought the grant should be made. In August 
the government was restored to Penn, who appointed his cousin 
Markham (not a Quaker) as his deputy. Fletcher still, however, 
sent demands from New York for grants of men and money towards 
the common defence of the frontier, and in 1696 the Assembly 
struck a bargain by which in return for a vote of money to Indian 
necessities they obtained the old Penn constitution. 

The parliamentary principle that redress of grievances should 
precede supply was very firmly grasped by the Pennsylvania Assembly- 
men, and these demands by successive Governors gave them 
opportunities which they used to the full. But on the restoration 
of his proprietorship in 1694 Penn had given, or was understood 
to have given, a pledge which committed both himself and the 

1 Bowden, Friends in America , ii. 133 (New York State Papers , September 15, 
1693). 


PENNSYLVANIA 


359 

Assemblies more deeply than they were prepared to go. The Com¬ 
mittee on Trade and Plantations at Whitehall, August i and 3, 
1694, records that it had an interview with 

“ Mr. Penn, who, having declared to their Lordships, that if 
their Majesties shall be graciously pleased to restore him to the 
Proprietary, according to the said grants, he intends with all 
convenient speed to repair hither, and take care of the government 
and provide for the safety and security thereof all that in him lies. 
And to that end he will carefully transmit to the Council and 
Assembly there all such orders as shall be given by their Majesties 
in that behalf; and he doubts not but they will at all times dutifully 
comply with and yield obedience thereunto, and to all such orders 
and directions as their Majesties shall from time to time think fit 
to send, for the supplying such quota of men, or the defraying their 
part of such charges as their Majesties shall think necessary for the 
safety and preservation of their Majesties’ dominions in that part of 
America.” 

“Yield in circumstantials to preserve essentials” was Penn’s 
advice once to the Assembly in reference to another matter. But 
the question of war and warlike preparations both to him and to the 
majority of the Assembly and Council, was an “ essential ” which 
they were not prepared to yield. It is true that the new patent granted 
to him made no mention of this proviso, and a promise to “ transmit ” 
requests pledged neither himself or the Assembly to grant them. 
But if the clause “ he doubts not ” is correctly reported (and there 
is no evidence to the contrary), Penn went further than this. President 
Sharpless, no harsh judge of the founder of Pennsylvania, comments : 
“ It looks as if he intended to promise a course of action for the 
future, and then unload this promise upon a body which would 
not redeem it.” 1 It is the least satisfactory moment of Penn’s career, 
due probably to his desire to regain control of the “ holy experiment,” 
and to save it from the rough handling of unsympathetic Governors. 

From 1699 to 1701 he was in residence in his province, and 
during that time he had himself to “ transmit ” a request from the 
English Crown for a quota of £350 towards the fortifications upon 
the New York frontier. The Assembly was “ paralysed ” by the 

1 Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment, p. 194. In a reply to Colonel Quarry’s 
charges some years later, Penn, however, expressly says in regard to military 
provision : “ It is a mistake that I had my government restored to me upon 
those terms. Let the royal instrument be consulted” (Memoirs of Hist. Soc. 
Pennsylvania , ix. 27). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


36 ° 

request, and begged for a copy of Penn’s speech, which was simply 
a reproduction of the royal message. He remained obstinately 
non-committal, and after a state of “ unpleasant parley ” for four 
days 1 the Pennsylvania delegates sent a formal refusal, pleading 
that, though loyal, the province was heavily burdened, and they 
believed that neighbouring colonies had as yet done nothing in the 
matter. They added that they wished the King to know of “ our 
readiness (according to our abilities) to acquiesce with and answer 
his commands so far as our religious persuasions shall permit .” The 
members from Delaware (where the Swedes had no objection to the 
principle of military defence) pointed out that as they had not been 
able to build defences at home, it was unreasonable to ask them to 
build “ forts abroad.” The harvest (always a convenient plea for the 
Assembly when it wished to postpone business) led to an adjournment. 
A month later Penn commended the matter to “ their serious thought 
and care,” but they unanimously refused the grant. 

The home Government had appointed Colonel Quarry as 
Admiralty representative in the province. He was independent 
of the proprietor, and became the leader of the “ Church ” party, 
which gradually gained in strength as the province advanced in 
prosperity and immigrants flocked to it. It was apparently about 
this time he sent home bitter complaints of the military weakness 
of the Government. “ There is neither any militia established nor 
any provision made of arms or ammunition, but the country is left 
defenceless, and exposed to all hazards both by land and sea.” Of 
this, he added, the Delaware representatives had often complained 
to Penn. Penn replied to the charge with the plain fact that, 
“ There is as much (military provision) as there was in Colonel 
Fletcher’s time.” It is an “ imposition ” to say that a militia is 
necessary, “ since by land there is none to annoy it and by sea . . . 
a small vessel of war would, under God’s providence be the best 
security.” 2 This was a spirited tu quoque to the Admiralty representa¬ 
tive, but when the war of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1701 • 
the home Government were sufficiently alarmed about the defence 
of America to consider a plan for annexing all the proprietary 
Governments to the Crown. Penn gave up his cherished dream 
of ending his days in Pennsylvania and returned home to defend 
it from this danger. 

1 These phrases are used by Clarkson, Life of Penn , p. 248. 

* Memoirs of Pennsylvania Historical Society , ii. part i. (1827), pp. 193-7. 


PENN STL VANIA 


361 

He left behind him a faithful representative of his interests 
in his secretary, James Logan, and a well-intentioned Governor, 
Colonel Hamilton, who, however, died within a few months and 
was succeeded by John Evans, than whom Penn could hardly have 
made a worse choice. The full and frequent correspondence which 
Logan kept up with Penn gives a lively picture of Pennsylvanian 
politics. Logan had become Penn’s confidential secretary in 1699, 
at the age of twenty-five, and served his master and his heirs faith¬ 
fully for nearly fifty years, filling high office in the colony and acting 
in 1731 as Deputy-Governor. He was an accomplished scholar and 
a man of great integrity, but he was harsh and unconciliatory in his 
attitude towards the popular party in the Province. Although born 
and bred a Friend, he was, especially in later years, an advocate of 
defence, and thus had not much influence in his religious body. 

Both Hamilton and Evans made attempts to form a volunteer 
militia from the non-Quaker portion of the population, but it was 
never a success, partly, according to Logan, because the Church 
party worked against it in the hope that its failure would be another 
count in the indictment against Penn, and partly because the “ most 
ignorant ” believed “ that if they ’listed they would be forced to 
march towards Canada.” 1 The rumours of a French alliance with 
the Iroquois caused much alarm to Logan, who wrote in a very 
warlike strain that an Indian danger must be resisted by an Indian 
alliance. “ All Caesar’s army would not cope with a few of them 
without the assistance of some of their own nation and mode of 
warfare.” 2 Fear breeds cruelty, but a bookish Quaker’s longing 
for the Indian “mode of warfare” is a strange manifestation of 
panic. There is a curious letter of September 1703, in which Logan 
seems to be arguing out the Quaker view with himself before his 
final abandonment of it. “ I wish,” he says, “ thee could find more 
to say for our lying so naked and defenceless. I always used the 
best argument I could, and when I pleaded that we were a peaceable 
people, had wholly renounced war and the spirit of it, that we were 
willing to commit ourselves to the protection of God alone, in an 
assurance that the sword can neither be drawn nor sheathed, but by 
His direction, that the desolations made by it are the declaration 
of His wrath alone, and that those who will not the sword, but by 
an entire resignation commit themselves to His all-powerful provi- 

1 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, ix. (1870). Penn-Logan Correspondence, 
i. 124, 147. a Ibid., i. 88. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


362 

dence, shall never need it, but be safe under a more sure defence 
than any worldly arm—when I pleaded this, I really spoke my 
sentiments, but this will not answer in English Government, not the 
methods of this reign. Their answer is that should we lose our lives 
only, it would be little to the Crown, seeing ’tis our doing, but 
others are involved with us, and should the enemy make themselves 
master of the country it would too sensibly touch England in the 
rest of her colonies.” 1 

Evans, however, was not the man to convert the Quaker 
Assembly to war views. He did not disguise his contempt for their 
principles, while the steady Quakers and their German neighbours 
were shocked by his loose life. In 1706 he tried to frighten them 
into military preparations by a false alarm. A messenger rode 
headlong into Philadelphia with the news that a French fleet was 
off the mouth of the Delaware. Evans, apparently in the greatest 
alarm, rode through the city with drawn sword calling on the 
inhabitants to arm. Logan gives a lively description of the panic 
that prevailed. Some buried their valuables, others fled to the forest, 
women fainted, and about three hundred citizens appeared in arms. 
“ Friends were generally the quietest, yet many of them fled, but 
were miserably insulted and menaced by those that bore arms.” 
From other sources it appears that the majority of Friends (then 
about half the population of the city) were quiet enough to hold 
their regular week-day meeting. Isaac Norris, a leading member 
of the Assembly, declared that “not a Friend of any note but 
behaved as becomes our profession.”* Only four Friends were 
among the three hundred who took up arms ; the views of the 
Assembly were unaltered, and the effect of the trick was to discredit 
Evans. A few months later he induced the Delaware territory 
(which by this time had a separate Assembly) to build a fort at New 
Castle at the mouth of the river and to exact a tax for its maintenance 
(or “ powder money ”) from all incoming vessels, while those out¬ 
ward bound were challenged as they passed. This tax was both 
obnoxious in its application and a direct violation of the charter 
which granted “ free and undisturbed use of the ports.” After 
vain remonstrance Richard Hill and two other wealthy Friends 
ran a ship past the fort under fire from its guns, and when the 
commander put after them in a sloop, they allowed him to board, 

1 Historical Society of Pennsylvania , i. 227. 

2 Penn-Logan Correspondence y ii. 122. 


PENNSYLVANIA 


363 

and then making full speed carried him to New Jersey and handed 
him over as prisoner to Lord Cornbury the Governor. Cornbury, 
who also claimed rights over the river, gave the unfortunate officer 
a rough reception, and did not let him return without a promise 
to abandon the tax. After this, it was not possible for Governor 
and colonists to work together. The Assembly in 1707 petitioned 
Penn for his recall. The letter crossed with a very stern rebuke 
from the Proprietor to his deputy for several irregularities, and 
in particular for the attempt to extort fines in lieu of bearing arms 
from the Friends in the Delaware counties. “A thing that 
touches my conscience as well as honour—‘ He must be a silly shoe¬ 
maker that hath not a last for his own foot’—that any Friends 
should not be secure and easy under me, in those points that regard 
our very characteristics.” 1 

In 1709 Evans was replaced by Gookin, an elder, and more 
experienced man. He did not, however, escape difficulties with 
the Assembly, both on military and other questions. The Queen 
sent a demand for quotas of men to be furnished and maintained 
by the various colonies towards an expeditionary force to Canada. 
Pennsylvania’s share was a hundred and fifty men. Gookin, 
remembering the troubles of his predecessor, suggested as a satis¬ 
factory solution that instead of voting the men they should grant 
£4,000 to cover expenses. “ Perhaps it may seem difficult to raise 
such a number of men in a country where most of the inhabitants 
are of such principles as will not allow them the use of arms ; but 
if you will raise the sum for the support of government, I don’t 
doubt getting the number of men desired whose principles will 
allow the use of arms.” 2 

The Assembly refused to adopt this compromise or evasion, 
but some of its Quaker members met their brethren of the Council 
for consultation. The latter, Logan and others, were of opinion 
that though they could not vote money for war they might testify 
their loyalty to the Queen by a special grant to her. The Assembly 
agreed to grant £500 to be “ put into a safe hand till they were 
satisfied from England it should not be employed for the use of war.” 

1 Penn-Logan Correspondence , ii. 220. Throughout this period there were 
occasional alarms from pirates and privateers, who were said to find hiding-places 
along the undefended coasts. In 1709 a French privateer made a descent on 
Lewes. In 1747, the Assembly declined to fit out vessels to guard the Delaware 
River against pirates (Pennsylvania Magazine , x. 290). 

* Colonial Records , ii. 740. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


364 

The Governor refused this proposal, and the House adjourned. 
Gookin sent home a graphic account of his dilemma. The Assembly, 
“ being all Quakers, after much delay resolved, nullo contradicente , 
that it was contrary to their principles to hire men to kill one another. 
I told some of them the Queen did not hire men to kill one another, 
but to destroy her enemies. One of them answered, the Assembly 
understood English.” He “ tried all ways to bring them to reason,” 
but in vain. 1 

Logan says that the Jersey Assembly, in which Quakers were 
in the majority, also rejected the demand, “ ’Tis said upon some 
advices from hence,” that is from Philadelphia, and that Gookin 
had suggested that the money granted should be spent on provisions 
to be sent to Boston. 2 

It was at this time that Logan made his most querulous attacks 
upon his Quaker opponents in politics. “ If Friends,” he wrote 
to Penn ,3 “ after such a profession of denying the world, living 
out of it, and acting in opposition to its depraved ways, to which 
they have borne a testimony by the most distinguishing characters 
from any other people, cannot be satisfied, but must involve them¬ 
selves in affairs of Government, under another power and 
administration, which administration in many of its necessary points 
is altogether inconsistent with this profession—I say, if this be the 
case, I cannot see why it should not be accounted singularly just 
in providence to deal to their portion crosses, vexations, and 
disappointments, to convince them of their mistakes and incon¬ 
sistency. I write freely as I think, and as I have often been 
obliged to express myself, tho’ thou well knows I am no very 
pretender that way.” 

Before the next requisition came, in 1711, there had been a 
General Election, under which the party loyal to their Governor 
and his representative gained a sweeping victory, due mainly to 
the reaction after bitter attacks on Penn and Logan. None of the 
old Assembly were re-elected, but even the new members who 
represented the moderate and “ weighty ” Friends felt considerable 
repugnance to a war vote. Finally, they granted £2,000 “ for the 

* Historical Collections Relating to the American Colonial Churchy Pennsylvania, 
p. 51. Quoted by Sharpless, Quaker Experiment , p. 201. 

J Penn-Logan Correspondence , ii. 350. The dispute dragged on for several 
months. 

3 Memoirs of Historical Society of Pennsylvania , x. {Penn-Logan Correspondence , 
ii. 351). The letter is dated 4th mo. 14, 1709. 


PENNSTLFJNU 365 

Queens use.” “We did not see it,” said Isaac Norris, “to be 
inconsistent with our principles to give the Queen money, 
notwithstanding any use she might put it to ; that not being our 
part, but hers.” 1 In fact, it was used by a later Governor not for 
war but for his personal expenses. 

At this time Penn was considering the transfer of his province 
to the Crown, under strict safeguards of his subjects’ charter rights, 
but he was struck down by paralysis before the arrangement was 
completed. He lingered on till 1718. During his illness and the 
minority of his sons, i.e. till 1725, Hannah Penn managed the 
affairs of the province with great wisdom, with the help of James 
Logan. For thirty years an “era of good feeling” prevailed. As 
far as military matters were concerned, the long peace prevented 
trouble. The Governor occasionally raised a volunteer militia, 
but there were no calls for war aids. 

“But, beginning with 1737, the gradual alienation of the 
Indian tribes made a disturbed frontier ready to be dangerous at the 
first outbreak of war, and new conditions prevailed.”* At the same 
time the population in the province was rapidly increasing (in 1741 
it was estimated at 100,000) while the proportion of Friends 
decreased. Persecution had ceased in England and the new 
immigrants were largely Lutherans from the devastated Palatinate, 
who became the “ Pennsylvania Dutch ” of to-day, and Ulster 
Presbyterians who were driven from home by civil disabilities, 
and by the crushing of Irish industry by English legislation. The 
Lutherans for the most part raised no objection to the Quaker 
control, but the Ulstermen reinforced the old “ Church ” party 
of opposition, and “ Quaker ” and “ Presbyterian ” in the Assembly 
gradually became the titles of two political parties. 

Until the young Penns assumed control of the province there 
had been no friction between Indian and white man. Penn’s most 
earnest efforts were directed towards the maintenance of good 
relations. In the admirable letter which he dispatched to the natives 
in 1681 by his first deputy Markham, he informed them that his 
King had granted him territory : “ But I desire to enjoy it with 
your love and consent that we may always live together as neighbour 
and friends, else what would the great God do to us, who hath 
made us, not to devour and destroy one another, but to live soberly 

1 Penn-Logan Correspondence , ii. 436. 

1 Sharpless, Quaker Experiment , p. 203. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


366 

and kindly together in the world ? Now I would have you well 
observe that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that 
have been too much exercised towards you by the people of these 
parts of the world, who have sought themselves, and to make great 
advantages by you. . . . But I am not such a man, as is well known 
in my own country. I have great love and regard towards you and 
desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind, just and 
peaceable life ; and the people I send are of the same mind, and 
shall, in all things behave themselves accordingly ; and if in anything 
any shall offend you or your people, you shall have a full and speedy 
satisfaction for the same, by an equal number of just men on both 
sides.” 1 

Markham was charged to meet the Indian chiefs in conference, 
to buy land for settlement from them by free bargaining, and at 
what they considered a fair rate of barter, and to explain that Penn 
had no wish to eject them from their hunting-grounds and that 
they were to enjoy the same protection at law as a white settler. 
There is little wonder that the Indians, in repeated treaties, declared 
that they would “ live in peace with Onas and his children as long 
as the sun and the moon shall endure.” Even before Penn left 
England he gave proof of his care for Indian interests. He was offered 
£6,000 for a monopoly of the Indian trade, and refused. “ I truly 
believe,” wrote one of the would-be monopolists, “ he does aim 
more at justice and righteousness and spreading of truth than at his 
own particular gain.” Penn’s own comment was : “ I did refuse 
a great temptation last Second Day . . . but I would not defile 
what came to me clean.”* 

Through Penn’s lifetime he gradually acquired south-eastern 
Pennsylvania, buying strips as the population increased, and fresh 
settlements were required. Bowden says that he paid, in all, the 
equivalent of £20,000.3 The practice of buying Indian rights was 
not new. The Dutch and Swedes had always done so, and many 
settlements in New England, though not all, had followed the 
practice. Rhode Island and New Jersey were acquired by purchase. 
In the southern colonies purchase was less frequent and trouble 
with the Indians had resulted from the omission. 

It was the acknowledged fairness of the methods adopted by 

* Bowden, Friends in America , ii. 58. 

3 Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania , p. 522. Pennsylvania Magazine, x. 189. 

3 Bowden, Friends in America , ii. 72. 


PENN STL VANIA 367 

Penn and his settlers that marked them out from earlier intercourse 
(with the possible exception of Rhode Island). Care was taken 
not only to purchase, but to purchase from all who claimed rights 
in the territory. The Indians were not cheated in any way, in 
smaller transactions, such as the purchase of furs or game, they were 
given payment which contented them. Complaints by the settlers 
against Indians for theft or trespass were referred to the jurisdiction 
of the chiefs ; complaints by Indians against white men were fully 
investigated, and those guilty punished. The famous “ treaty,” 
probably made at Shackamaxon in June 1683 was only a type of 
the general relations between Quaker and Indians for the first six 
years of the settlement. It was not, as Voltaire said, “ the only 
treaty,” but one of a series of agreements “ never confirmed by an 
oath and never broken.” The Indians lived in peace and friendship 
with their neighbours, and in return the Friends tried, with little 
success, to bring them to Christianity, and to keep them from the 
vices and follies of civilization. 

In 1701 the Assembly prohibited the selling of rum to the Indians, 
but the Yearly Meeting had pronounced its opinion on the matter 
years before. “It is not consistent with the honour of truth ” 
(1685) “a thing contrary to the mind of the Lord, and great grief 
and burthen to his people, and a great reflection and dishonour to 
the truth” (1687). In 1719 it was made a disciplinary offence. 
The Indians appreciated the care of their friends. At an early 
conference in New Jersey one chief said the Dutch and Swedes 
who sold liquor to them were “ blind, they had no eyes, they did 
not see it to be hurtful for us to drink it, although we knew it to 
be hurtful to us ; but if people will sell it to us we are so in love 
with it we cannot forbear it. . . . But now there is a people come 
to live among us that have eyes ; they see it to be for our hurt, they 
are willing to deny themselves the profit of it for our good. These 
people have eyes. We are glad such a people are come among us.” 1 

From 1681 to 1755 there was no conflict and no bloodshed 
between Pennsylvanians and Indians. There were often rumours 
that the tribes would be stirred up by their over-lords under French 
instigation to raid the settlements, and at such times a growing 
minority of non-Quaker settlers complained bitterly of their defence¬ 
less condition. But in actual fact the good relations were never 
disturbed. “Without any carnal weapon,” wrote a Friend in early 
* Janney, Life of Penn (1852), p. 123. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


368 

days, “ we entered the land and inhabited therein as safe as if there 
had been thousands of garrisons, for the Most High preserved us 
from harm, both man and beast.” In 1688 a mysterious report 
arose that five hundred Indian warriors had assembled at an Indian 
“ town,” and were preparing to march on Philadelphia to massacre 
all the immigrants. The rumour was so persistent and alarming 
that the Council took cognizance of it, whereupon one of its 
members, Caleb Pusey, a leading Friend, offered to visit the alleged 
rendezvous, with five others, all unarmed. When the deputation 
reached the town, they found an old chief surrounded by women 
and children. The men were out on a hunting expedition, and the 
only ill-feeling shown was by the chief against the authors of the 
report, who, he declared, should be “ burnt to death.” 1 

After Penn’s death, James Logan managed the relations with 
the Indians in the spirit of his old master, and he was fully supported 
by the Assembly. But two new factors were at work which he was 
unable to control. The Ulstermen and Germans naturally pressed 
forward to take up unoccupied lands. These newcomers cared 
little for Indian rights and settled where they chose. Even when 
Logan made them move, or paid for their holdings, friction had 
been caused ; and the whole attitude of these new frontiersmen 
was the Puritan one of contempt and dislike for the savage. The 
Lord had given them the land, and they were eager to smite the 
Amalekite. In any case, as the population grew, the difficulty of 
maintaining Indian hunting-grounds increased. But a more serious 
trouble was the avarice and chicanery of the proprietors. Penn’s 
children had early left their father’s sect, and with it they seemed 
to have left his policy of justice. Their aim was to extinguish all 
the Indian rights to the province, and between 1737 and 1754 
this was practically accomplished by means that do not stand 
investigation. Old deeds were examined, and their titles strained, 
chiefs were made drunk and induced to sign away their rights, the 
Iroquois, the feudal overlords of the Pennsylvania Indians, were 
called in to threaten and coerce the malcontents, and a whole series 

1 Proud, History of Pennsylvania, i. 337. In one of Penn’s early reports 
from the colony ( A Further Account of Pennsylvania ”) he alludes to a false 
report of a massacre by Indians circulated in England. “ The dead people 
were alive at our last advices.” He adds : “ Our humanity obliges them (the 
Indians) so far that they generally leave their guns at home, when they come to 
o^-lcments. . . . Justice gains and awes them” {Pennsylvania Magazine, 


PENNSTL VANIA 3 6 9 

of misdeeds, of which the “ Walking Purchase ” was one of the 
earliest and most flagrant, were perpetrated. The “Walking 
Purchase ” was based on an old agreement, never enforced, conveying 
land in a certain district to Penn, as far as a man could walk in a 
day and a half. Thomas Penn produced this deed, and sent to take 
the “ walk ” two trained runners who covered in the time more 
than sixty miles, and included land in Indian occupation which by 
no possibility could have been intended in the old agreement. 
Finally, in 1754, the Proprietors bought from the New York 
Iroquois, without consulting the majority of the Pennsylvania tribes, 
all the remaining territory in western Pennsylvania. The Delaware 
and Shawnee tribes were left with a sense of rank injustice, 
and as the French, after winning over most of the tribes on the 
Canadian frontier, approached the chiefs of Pennsylvania, they 
found ready listeners. 

The Assembly, and the Quakers as a body, had no power to check 
the proprietors, but they were guiltless of these wrongs. The 
Assembly did what it could, refusing to enforce the “ Walking 
Purchase,” and when the Penns, in alarm at the growing alienation 
of the Indians, tried to buy their good-will with gifts, the Assembly 
made grants on their own account for the same purpose, amounting 
to some j£8,ooo between 1733 and 1751 . J 

But, as the long peace showed signs of breaking up, the position 
of the Quakers in the Assembly grew more difficult. For years they 
held the majority of seats there and, under Hannah Penn, in the 
Council, while the Quaker body was gradually becoming a minority 
of the population, which in 1740 numbered about 100,000. This 
was partly due to the fact that after the Delaware counties had 
established a separate legislature, the three original Pennsylvania 
counties increased their representation in the Assembly, and as the 
new counties were added, these latter were considerably under¬ 
represented. But it is also true that the German element in the 
population voted steadily for the Quakers. The numbers of the 
Assembly were 36 : in 1740, 33 were Quakers ; in 1755, when 
their policy was fiercely assailed both in the province and in England, 
and when they were preparing to give up political power, 28 were 
returned at the election. The questions at issue were not confined 
to defence. The Assembly represented the democratic party, which 
took its stand on the rights of the charter, resisting any arbitrary 
1 Sharpless, The Quakers in the Revolution p. 22. 

24 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


37° 

encroachment by the Crown or the proprietors, and in this position 
the majority of the province were in hearty agreement with them. 
The old “ Church ” party naturally supported the Proprietors and 
were bitter against the Assembly, and in the later years of the period 
the Ulstermen on the frontier clamoured for expeditions against the 
Indians. 

Up to 1739, however, the “golden age” of Pennsylvania still 
flourished. “Between 1710 and 1740 there was hardly a ripple 
of discontent, but everyone throve under, and rejoiced in the 
beneficent charter. Immigration was active, trade grew, peace 
was secure, taxes were practically unfelt, and the powers of the 
Assembly were unquestioned. But during the latter year the first 
serious demands were made for men and money for wars against 
England’s enemies—demands which grew greater with the succeeding 
years—causing great uneasiness among the peace men of the 
province, and stirring up disputes as to the methods to be employed 
in raising the money. These troubles gradually but manifestly changed 
Pennsylvania from a colony remarkably free, prosperous, and 
unburdened, to one disunited and struggling under a heavy load of 
expenditure and consequent taxes.” 1 

In 1739 the first trouble began. England was at war with 
Spain, and Governor Thomas asked for a money grant and for the 
establishment of a militia, pointing out the defenceless state of the 
colony. In a series of long papers Governor and Assembly argued 
out the question. 2 The Assembly began : 

“ As very many of the inhabitants of this province are of the 
people called Quakers, who, though they do not as the world is 
now circumstanced condemn the use of arms in others, yet are 
principled against it themselves, and to make any law against their 
consciences to bear arms would not only be to violate a fundamental 
in our constitution and be a direct breach of our charter of privileges, 
but would also in effect be to commence persecution against all that 
part of the inhabitants of the province, and should a law be made 
which should compel others to bear arms and exempt that part of 
the inhabitants, as the greater number in the Assembly are of like 
principles, would be an inconsistency with themselves and partial 
with respect to others”—therefore they cannot accede to the 
Governor’s request. The Governor replied that the Assembly 

* Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution, p. 16. 

» Colonial Records , iv. 366 foil. 


PENNSYLVANIA 37 i 

represented the whole province, not a sect, and it was their duty 
to arrange for its defence, not leaving the matter entirely to 
providence. He also emphasized the inconsistency of maintaining 
capital punishment, while objecting to war. To this the Assembly 
replied that the soldier fights “ in obedience to the commands of his 
sovereign, and may possibly think himself in the discharge of his 
duty,” while the burglar or other criminal “ must know at the 
time of the commission of the act that it was a violation of laws, 
human and divine, and that he thereby justly rendered himself 
obnoxious to the punishment which ensued.” The Governor asked 
them in despair : “ Is it a calumny to say your principles are 

inconsistent with the ends of government ? ” 

The dispute culminated in a letter from the Governor to the 
home authorities advising that Quakers should be excluded from 
the Assembly. The Assembly learned of this and indignation ran 
high in the next election, during which there was a street fight 
between the Governor’s party and the German supporters of the 
Assembly. The Assembly was re-elected, and withheld the 
Governor’s salary until he came to terms with them. Evidently 
there was much ill-feeling, and Dr. Fothergill, who from England 
followed the affairs of the province with intelligence and sympathy, 
wrote a letter of gentle rebuke to his friend Israel Pemberton, one 
of the leaders of the Assembly : 

“ If I may be permitted to give my opinion of the management 
of your controversy with the Governor I can scarcely upon the 
whole forbear to take his side. Your cause is undoubtedly good, 
but I am afraid you discover a little more warmth than is quite 
consistent with the moderation we profess. ... Be pleased to 
remember that a deference is due to a magistrate in some sense 
though a wicked one.” Pennsylvania Friends had asked the help 
of London Friends in this threat to their liberties, and Fothergill 
was one of a Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings which sat 
often on the matter. Petitions were presented and groups of Friends 
appeared before the Board of Trade in 1742 and the Committee 
of Council in 1743. 1 

The French War followed the Spanish, and in 1744 Thomas 
was able (with the active help of Benjamin Franklin) to raise a 
volunteer militia of ten thousand men. Next year, after the fall 
of Louisburg, the Assembly was called upon to provide men and 

* Dr. Hingston Fox, Dr. John Fothergill and his Friends, p. 301. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


372 

arms. Again they protested that they could not vote munitions of 
war, but as “ tribute to Caesar,” granted £4,000 for “ bread, beef, 
pork, flour, wheat, or other grain.” Franklin says that the Governor 
spent the money on gunpowder, declaring that that was the “ other 
grain ” intended. During the next ten years there were several 
calls for military aid, and on each occasion the Assembly granted 
money “ for the King’s use.” But, as the grants were always used 
for war, the position of the Quakers in the Assembly was becoming 
very difficult, and the crisis was hastened by pressure both within 
the Society and by their enemies without. In the Society itself there 
were by this time three fairly clear divisions. A certain number 
followed James Logan in justifying defensive war and warlike 
preparations. At this time they were much under Franklin’s influence, 
who supported the “ Quaker party ” in the Assembly in their 
resistance to the claims of the Crown and the Proprietors, though 
he had no sympathy with their peace views. Franklin had formed 
a volunteer fire brigade of thirty members in Philadelphia, of whom 
twenty-two were Quakers. In 1744-5 he proposed that the brigade 
funds should be invested in a lottery which he had started to provide 
a battery on the river. Franklin and his seven friends met to consider 
the proposal and one Quaker to oppose it. “ We carried the resolu¬ 
tion eight to one ; and as of the twenty-two Quakers, eight were 
ready to vote with us, and thirteen, by their absence, manifested 
that they were not inclined to oppose the measure, I afterwards 
estimated the proportion of Quakers sincerely opposed to defence 
as one to twenty-one only.” Excessive scrupulousness was never 
one of Franklin’s failings, and this remarkable calculation neglects 
to consider that, as the stricter Quakers had considerable mistrust 
of his principles, they were not likely to have joined his brigade. 1 
On the next page of his Autobiography he contradicts his own 
assertion by saying of the second division of the Friends—those who 
were members of the legislature—that in regard to war votes, 
“ they were unwilling to offend Government, on the one hand, by 

_ * Samuel Fothergill, brother of the Doctor, and himself a famous Quaker 
minister, paid a long visit to America from 1754 to 1756. In the spring of the 
latter year he wrote of a disrespectful address from the Assembly to the Governor : 
“ It is altogether imputed to B. Franklin, their principal penman, who, I have 
sometimes thought, intended to render the Assembly contemptible, and subject 
our religious Society to the imputation of want of respect for authority, as a 
factious sort of people and I fear he has gained his point ” (Sharpless, Quaker 
Experiment , p. 248). Franklin himself, in his Autobiography , admits the disrespect 
of these addresses. 


PENNSYLVANIA 373 

a direct refusal ; and their friends, the body oj the Quakers y on the 
other, by a compliance contrary to their principles.” 

These Quaker Assemblymen, as has been said, ultimately found 
themselves on the horns of a dilemma. While Penn was in control 
they could confide in his support, and in the twenty years of peace 
after his death they managed the affairs of the province without 
qualms of conscience. But from 1739 to 1756 they progressed 
along a slippery path of compromise. The Proprietors were 
unsympathetic, and the English Government was warlike, and 
eventually the Assembly was forced to provide the financial means 
for war. On the other hand, they were able to maintain the rights 
of the charter, and to ward off the imposition of compulsory military 
service. At last the policy broke down. It was too pacific for the 
war party, and too warlike for the Yearly Meeting, and the two 
currents of opposition swept over the Assembly in the same 
year, 1755/6. 

Before 1739 the Yearly Meeting had no occasion to concern 
itself with any danger to the peace principle of Friends. In that 
year it issued a paper urging its members to keep clear of any warlike 
preparations, and “ to demonstrate to the world that our practices, 
when we are put to the trial, correspond to our principles.” From 
this time onward both the Yearly Meeting and Philadelphia Quarterly 
Meeting keep in close touch with the London Meeting for Sufferings, 
sending that body full information of the situation in Pennsylvania, 
and receiving in return advice and help in putting the Quaker case 
before the English authorities. 

In 1741, during the Assembly’s dispute with Governor Thomas, 
James Logan made an attempt to influence the views of the Yearly 
Meeting. He sent a letter to them in which, while admitting that 
Friends held as a principle the unlawfulness of all war (though he 
himself believed in defensive war), yet as they now constituted only 
a third of the population, he considered they had no right to impose 
their views on others. Hence he urged that Friends should not 
offer themselves as candidates at the coming General Election. In 
accordance with its usual practice the Yearly Meeting handed the 
letter unopened to a small committee, who retired to consider it, 
and reported that it “ related to the civil and military affairs of the 
Government, and in their opinion was unfit to be read in this 
meeting.” A contemporary letter-writer (not a Friend), in telling 
the story, adds a graphic touch. One Friend rose to advocate the 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


374 

reading of Logan’s paper, as a token of respect to him, “ but 
John Bringhouse plucked him by the coat, and told him with a 
sharp tone of voice, ‘ Sit thee down, Robert, thou art single in the 
opinion.’ ” 1 

Although the majority of Friends dissented from Logan’s 
general argument, there had always been an appreciable number 
who held the same conclusion—that Friends should not engage 
in politics. This view, however (which it is evident from Logan’s 
letters to Penn was held even at the beginning of the century) 2 
was based not on expediency, but on religious grounds. It was 
felt that there was danger both of inconsistency and of spiritual 
loss for those members who were preoccupied with affairs of 
State. The attitude of the Assembly during these years of war 
strengthened this conviction among the general body of Friends, 
and the events of the years 1755 and 1756 hastened the final 
decision. 

In 1754, when the first alarm of the French and Indian troubles 
arose, the Governor, at the urgent request of the Penns, tried to 
induce the Assembly to establish a compulsory militia and, failing 
in this, he wrote home angrily of the “ absurdity ” of the Pennsyl¬ 
vania constitution and of Quaker principles. The evil policy of 
the Proprietors towards the Indians now bore its fruit, and the 
frontier Indians were in undoubted league with the French. Panic 
prevailed, and as Braddock led his expedition through the province, 
he received much private support (Franklin working indefatigably 
for him), and the Assembly voted grants for provisioning the army 
and for presents to the Indian tribes, in the hope of buying their 
friendship. Braddock’s defeat loosed the pent-up tide of Indian 
passion, and for the first time the Pennsylvania settlers on the frontier 
experienced the atrocities which for generations had been sadly 
familiar to other colonists. 


* Vide Franklin, Autobiography; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Records , 1741 ; 
Pennsylvania Magazine, vl 403, which gives the text of Logan’s letter. 

* E.g. in 1702 he writes that “ the most knowing ” Friends think Government 
ill-fitted to their principles ( Penn-Logan Correspondence, i. 147). So also in 1708 
(letter published in Bulletin of Friends' Historical Society (Philadelphia), May, 1916). 
In 1757, Lord Loudoun, Commander-in-Chief in America, wrote home to Pitt, 
after an attempt to raise men and money in the Jerseys, “ Altho* I have been a 
great favourer of the Quakers, I am thoroughly convinced since I came to this 
country that they are very unfit to be employed in any public employment ” 
(Gummere, Quaker in the Forum , p. 147). 


PENNSTLFJNU 


375 

Some writers, notably the American historians, Parkman and 
Fiske, 1 have argued that the Delaware and Shawnee Indians of 
Pennsylvania, being subject to their Iroquois overlords, were a 
poor-spirited race, and that Pennsylvania’s immunity from trouble 
had been due to this rather than to Penn’s policy. But now it was 
not only the fiercer tribes, but Penn’s old allies, who scalped and 
tomahawked their victims. An English Friend, Samuel Fothergill, 
who was in Pennsylvania at this time, noted in his letters home, 
of the land wrested from the Delawares in 1742, that “ it is pretty 
much in this land, and land fraudulently obtained, that the barbarities 
are committed.” There is other evidence that settlers in regularly 
purchased land felt themselves comparatively safe. Kelsey, 
Friends and the Indians , while admitting that Friends generally lived 
in the earlier-settled and safer districts, adds : “Yet it seems very 
clear from the records that at the opening of the war there were 
Friends in the outlying settlements exposed to the Indians. . . . 
In 1756 the Meeting for Sufferings was established, chiefly because 
of the disturbances on the frontier, and its first duty was ‘ to Hear 
and Consider the Cases of any Friends under Sufferings, especially 
such as suffer from the Indians or other Enemies.’ ” He also quotes 
a letter of Israel Pemberton in 1758 : “ In all the desolation on 
our frontiers, not one Friend we have heard of has been slain or 
carried captive, and we have reason to think, both from their conduct 
in places where Friends were as much exposed as others and from 
their declarations to us, they (the Indians) would never hurt Friends 
if they knew us to be such.” 2 Philadelphia, however, was filled 
with refugees, whose tales of horror roused strong feeling against 
the Assembly. Scenes like the following, which John Woolman 
saw a few months later, were common : “ The corpse of one so slain 
(by the Indians) was brought in a wagon, and taken through the 
streets of the city in his bloody garments, to alarm the people and 
rouse them to war .”3 

Nevertheless, in spite of the feeling in Philadelphia, the country 
Germans, who were more exposed to the danger, voted steadily 
for the Quakers. In the Assembly of 1755 twenty-eight of the 
thirty-six members were Friends, or closely connected with the 

1 Parkman in Conspiracy of Pontiac , i. 80-5, and Fiske in The Dutch and 
Quaker Colonies , ii. 164 foil., and elsewhere. 

a Kelsey, Friends and the Indians , pp. 74-6. Letter of Pemberton printed 
in Philadelphia Friend, 1873, p. 187 

3 Woolman, Journal. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


27<> 

body. In a long letter to the London Meeting for Sufferings, 
defending the Quaker members of the Assembly, the Quarterly 
Meeting of Philadelphia says : 1 

“ Our former representatives were at our last election chosen 
throughout the province by the greatest majority ever known. . . . 
And it is remarkable that for sixteen years successively, more than 
half of which was a time of war, a set of men conscientiously 
principled against warlike measures have been chosen by those of 
whom the majority were not in that particular of the same 
principle ; and this we apprehend may be chiefly attributed to the 
repeated testimonies we have constantly given of our sincere and 
ready disposition to provide for the exigencies of the Government 
. . in such manner as we can do with peace and satisfaction of 
mind.” The main ground of the defence was the service rendered 
by the Assemblies in maintaining the constitution against “ arbitrary 
and oppressive measures.” 

But the new Assembly was soon to prove too warlike for 
Friends, while still not satisfying its enemies ; £55,000 was voted 
for the relief of loyal Indians and “ other purposes,” and was 
immediately applied to the erection of a chain of forts upon the 
frontier. In the autumn the first Militia law of Pennsylvania was 
passed : 

“ Whereas this province was first settled by (and a majority of the 
Assemblies have ever since been of) the people called Quakers . . . 
yet forasmuch as by the general toleration and equity of our laws, 
great numbers of people of other religious denominations are come 
amongst us, . . . some of whom have been disciplined in the art 
of war, and conscientiously think it their duty to fight in defence 
of their country, their wives, their families, and their estates, and 
such have an equal right to liberty of conscience with others,” 
and had petitioned for the right to form a militia, accordingly 
provisions were made for this step, with due exemptions for those 
“conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms.”* The legislature 
for the Delaware counties introduced an Act without such exemp¬ 
tions. At this time John Woolman, attending the Yearly Meeting, 
found some Friends shared his scruples against paying the new taxes 
obviously intended for war, while others saw no objection. The 

* 5th mo. 5, 1755. 

* The text of the Act was reproduced in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1756, 
p. 53, as well as a dialogue in its favour (p. 122). The latter was written by 
Franklin, and in his Autobiography he claims most of the credit for the Act. 


PENN STL VANIA 


377 

Yearly Meeting finally left the matter to the individual conscience 
of Friends, many of whom during the next few years refused to 
pay and suffered distraint, though James Pemberton admitted 
that the majority “ not only comply with it, but censure those who 
do not.” 

During the Yearly Meeting, and at the time of the passing of 
the Militia bill (November 1755) a deputation of some of the leaders 
of the Society, Israel and John Pemberton, Anthony Benezet, 
and others, approached the Assembly with a protest against the 
war taxes, a warning that they personally would not pay them, 
and a plea that the representatives might pursue “ measures consistent 
with our peaceable principles, and then we trust we may continue 
humbly to confide in the protection of that Almighty Power whose 
providence hath hitherto been as walls and bulwarks about us.” 
This was practically a censure on the Quaker members of the 
Assembly, and the majority showed their resentment by describing 
the address as “ unadvised and indiscreet.” But the Yearly Meeting 
was anxious to clear itself of all suspicion of compromise. In its 
1756 Epistle to London it urged Friends at home to draw a clear 
distinction “ between the acts and resolutions of the Assembly of 
this province, though the majority of them are our brethren in 
profession, and our acts as a religious Society.” Samuel Fothergill, 
who was in touch with all the currents of opinion among Pennsyl¬ 
vania Friends, wrote bluntly: “The Assembly have sold their 
testimony as Friends to the people’s fears, and not gone far enough 
to satisfy them.” 

The matter was complicated by financial disputes with the 
Governor and the Penns. The latter were more anxious to secure 
for their great estates exemption from the war taxes than even to 
arrange for the defence of the colony, while the people and the 
Assembly were determined that they should share the burden. 
Complaints from Governor and Proprietors of factious opposition, 
and a petition from leading Philadelphians protesting against the 
weakness of the colony’s defences, due to the Quaker tenets of the 
Assembly, reached the English Ministry. 

In February 1756 counsel for these petitioners were heard in 
London before the Board of Trade and Plantations. 1 

1 Vide Pennsylvania Magazine , x. 283 foil. (“ Attitude of the Quakers in the 
Provincial Wars,” by C. J. Still6). This is an interesting and impartial investiga¬ 
tion, although Dr. Stille tends to look upon the Assembly as thoroughly representa¬ 
tive of the Society of Friends, 


378 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


Their main requests to the English Government were two— 
to exclude all Quakers from the Assembly and, inconsistently enough, 
to veto the Militia Bill passed by the Assembly in the previous 
November. This was nominally on the ground that such a Bill 
was a usurpation of the rights of the Crown. In fact, as Dr. Stille 
remarks, it was from fear that the measures taken would leave them 
without reasonable ground of complaint against the existing 
Assembly. “ The chain of forts so effectually protected the province 
that from the time they were established no English or French 
invaders ever came through them.”* The speech for the petitioners 
was unscrupulous in its misrepresentations, and in particular in 
its entire identification of the Society of Friends and the Assembly, 
at a time when the breach between them was most acute. For 
example, it alleged that, “ the Quakers in Pennsylvania have, upon 
every application, for sixteen years now passed, refused to raise a 
militia, refused to put the country in a posture of defence, refused 
to raise men or money for the King’s service, declared themselves 
principled against all military measures and, at length, declared 
even self-defence to be unlawful and that, at a time when the 
Indians and enemy were in the heart of their country, burning 
and destroying the inhabitants with unheard-of cruelties and 
barbarities.” The Assembly had just passed a Defence Bill and 
voted £55,000 for military purposes, as was admitted by the petitioners 
themselves. The “canting Quakers,” went on the lawyer, had 
settled themselves out of danger (in “the heart of the country,” 
perhaps), and it was evident from the “ insolent address ” presented 
to the Assembly, that that body was “ led by the nose by that illegal 
cabal, called their Yearly Meeting and their Quarterly Meeting.” 
Yet this very address had been sharply rebuked by the Assembly. 
The Militia Bill, through its conscience clause, was none other 
than a Bill to make “ Quaker proselytes,” and “ when persons in 
power declare as these do, we cannot, we will not, defend, the 
bond and first principle of society and of nature itself is broke and 
dissolved, and they ought not to govern.” 

The Board of Trade heard the defence of the Assembly from 
Richard Partridge, a Friend and the London representative of 
Pennsylvanian interests, but its final reply was ominous. It 
declared that the “ measures taken by the Assembly for the defence 
of the province were improper, inadequate, and ineffectual, and 
1 Vide Pennsylvania Magazine, p. 302. 


PENNSYLVANIA 


379 

that there was no cause to hope for other measures while the majority 
of the Assembly consisted of persons whose avowed principles were 
against military service.” 

The London Meeting for Sufferings, which included men 
such as Dr. Fothergill and David Barclay, in close touch with 
members of the Court and Ministry, discovered that the home 
Government was seriously considering the exclusion of Quakers 
from all legislative and civil office, not only in Pennsylvania, but 
throughout America, by the imposition of an oath. The Meetings’ 
records during the spring and summer of 1756 show the time, care, 
and anxiety expended by the “ Committee on Pennsylvania,” led 
by Fothergill, in averting this crisis. 1 A “ Nobleman in high 
station ” assured them of “ the general and strong prepossession ” 
against Quakers, excited by garbled accounts from Pennsylvania. 
He strongly urged that the Quaker members of the Assembly should 
voluntarily retire from office, resigning “ a trust which under present 
circumstances they could not discharge.” “ Other persons in high 
stations ” concurred in this advice, which the Committee accepted, 
believing that the majority of the members only held their seats 
from a sense of duty, and would readily resign if that course seemed 
best. The Meeting for Sufferings agreed to the report and decided 
not only to write in that sense to the Quarterly Meeting of Phila¬ 
delphia, but also to send over a deputation of two Friends to support 
the advice in person. The letter earnestly pressed resignation upon 
the Assembly members, “as your own immediate interest, the 
preservation of your charter, and our reputation jointly require it.” 
Fothergill also sent a personal letter to James Pemberton, urging 
the necessity of the step. Everyone, he said, had told him that “ you 
accept of a public trust which at the same time you cannot discharge. 
You owe the people protection and yet withhold them from protecting 
themselves.” What answer, he adds, can we make ? Samuel 
Fothergill, in Philadelphia, also used all his influence to the same 
end. 2 

The Exclusion Bill was only held in abeyance by the Meeting’s 
assurance that Friends would voluntarily give up office. Before 
the deputation arrived matters had already moved in the desired 
direction. In April 1756, as the raids of the Delaware Indians 

1 Meeting for Sufferings, 1756 ; 4th mo. 9 ; 6th mo. 18 ; 7th mo. 9 ; 
8th mo. 6. 

» Dr. Hingston Fox, Dr. John Fothergill and his Friends , p. 308. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


380 

continued, “after full consideration and debate, all the Council 
(except Mr. Logan, who desired his dissent might be entered on 
the minutes) agreed that the Governor ought not to delay declaring 
war against the enemy Indians. The bounties for prisoners and 
scalps were then considered and agreed to.” 1 

So opened Pennsylvania’s first Indian war, after more than 
seventy years of peace. Mr. Logan was William, son of James Logan, 
and himself a Friend. Earlier in the debate he had supported an 
address presented by Friends to the Governor, begging that further 
efforts should be made towards peace, since they believed that by 
presents and negotiations these tribes could be won back to their 
old friendship. But when the war began, when bands of friendly 
Indians and of frontier settlers wreaked fierce retaliation for their past 
sufferings, sending in to Philadelphia the scalps of Indian men and 
women, then the Quaker members of the Assembly had to choose 
between active support or open condemnation of these measures. 
In June, six resigned, led by James Pemberton, making this 
statement : 

“ As many of our constituents seem of opinion that the present 
situation of public affairs calls upon us for services in a military way, 
which from a conviction of judgment after mature deliberation 
we cannot comply with, we conclude it most conducive to the 
peace of our minds and the reputation of our religious profession 
to persist in our resolution of resigning our seats.” * At the election 
in the autumn other Friends refused to stand and many of the Society 
abstained from voting, in the hope of preventing the election of 
any fellow members. But through the efforts of the “ war ” Quakers 
and the democratic party, some sixteen, in close connection with 
the Society, were chosen. At this point the English delegation arrived, 
and through their labours and those of a committeee of the Yearly 
Meeting four more members resigned their seats, while twelve 
Quakers or nominal Quakers remained. “Several of these are 
not acknowledged by us as members of the Society,” Philadelphia 
Friends explained in a letter to London, December 1756. 

So ended the Quaker predominance in Pennsylvanian govern¬ 
ment. It had lasted for seventy-five years and had broken down 

* Colonial Records, , viii. 84. The Council consisted of ten members, four 
of whom were Quakers or of Quaker origin (Howard Jenkins, Pennsylvania , 
Colonial and Federal History , p. 452). 

a Votes of {Pennsylvania) Assembly , iv. 564. 


PENNSTL VANIA 381 

under pressure from external forces. Pennsylvania was never an 
independent State, at all times it was subject to the interferences 
of the home authorities, and after the death of Penn the Proprietors 
were in sympathy with the demands of the Crown rather than with 
the charter rights of the original settlers. It was not the policy of 
the colony itself, but the clash of French and English interests, 
which put the Quaker legislators to the hard necessity of voting 
monies to the Crown, which they knew would be used in warfare. 
While Penn’s policy towards the Indians was maintained no breath 
of trouble stirred between settler and red man ; had it been continued 
by his children and adopted by the other colonies the danger from 
the French in Canada would have been almost negligible. But it 
is impossible to inflict a succession of wrongs on a proud and savage 
race without reaping, in due course, a bloody retribution. It was the 
unfair dealing of the younger Penns that mainly brought about the 
failure. Divided responsibility and opposing policies were sure, in 
the end, to spell disaster. A second cause, which worked concurrently 
with the former, was due, ironically enough, to the success of another 
of Penn’s ideals. A State founded on universal toleration attracted 
to it an amazing number of immigrants and, as its prosperity increased, 
many entered who had no sympathy with its foundation principles. 
If Quakerism had retained the white heat of its early convictions, 
the newcomers might have been convinced of the truth, not of an 
isolated principle, but of the whole body of Quaker doctrine. That 
they were not is additional evidence of the fact that (to quote Samuel 
Fothergill) “ the salt had lost its savor.” The Quaker legislators 
were upright and conscientious men, but, as preceding pages have 
shown, they were timorous, and fumbled long at compromises before 
they realized their untenable position. The religious leaders of the 
Society were men of proved holiness and sincerity, but they had 
largely lost the missionary zeal of the first generation and were 
more concerned to repair breaches in the traditional faith than to 
spread their message far and wide. This judgment is not true without 
important qualifications as regards individuals, 1 but the swamping 
of the Quaker by the non-Quaker element in the province after 
the middle of the eighteenth century, attests its general accuracy. 
The influence of European war, the alienation of the Indians, 
the warlike tendencies of the new immigrants—such were the 
external causes of the change of control. 

* For example, Thomas Story, Anthony Benezet, and John Woolman. 


382 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


The extent and influence of an internal cause—the loss of 
spiritual power within the Society—could only be gauged by a 
very close study of the records and religious biographies of the time, 
but contemporary allusions show that it certainly must be taken 
into account. President Sharpless raises the question what might 
have happened if the members of the Assembly had retained both 
their principles and their places, maintaining the same policy in 
government as their brethren did in Indian raid or Irish rebellion, 
not evading danger but calmly facing it. 1 They certainly never lost 
in the country districts the confidence of the voters, who were only 
too anxious to choose Quaker representatives in the twenty years 
before the Revolution. Later events seem to show that they could 
have won back the Indians to alliance. On the other hand, a steady 
though passive resistance to English demands might have hastened 
the breach between Crown and colonies. It is more relevant to 
the discussion to recall the many successes of Penn’s “ holy experi¬ 
ment, in spite of all obstacles. In regard to peace, it is true that 
for seventy years there was neither war nor rebellion, the frontiers 
were secure without forts, and the harbours without men-of-war. 
“ Peace and justice were for two generations found available defences 
for a successful State. ... As long as exact justice prevailed, peace 
existed, and this is the lesson of Pennsylvania.” 2 

* Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment , p. 260. 


* Ibid., pp. 275-6. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 

Although the Quaker control of the Pennsylvania Assembly 
ended in 1756, the colonists continued to return representatives 
who, except in regard to defence, maintained the old policy. Up 
to the Revolution the majority of the Assembly was known to its 
opponents as the “ Quaker ” party. Isaac Norris, the younger, 
remained Speaker until his death in 1764, and signed various Bills 
for war purposes. His father had been a close friend of James Logan. 
But the influence of the Society was strongly against the entrance 
of Friends into the legislature. The Philadelphia Meeting for 
Sufferings—the first in America—was established in 1756 partly 
to meet the troubles due to the Delaware Militia Bill and the 
Pennsylvania war taxes. 1 Both it and the Yearly Meeting issued 
repeated cautions to Friends against taking any active part in politics. 
When peace came, however, some Friends felt that their scruples 
were allayed, especially as the Assembly disbanded the military forces, 
leaving only one hundred and fifty men in the State militia. For 
some years after 1765 even James Pemberton resumed his seat, 
although he resigned again before the troubles with England became 
acute. But the efforts of the official bodies always kept the actual 
Quaker element in the Assembly small. 

The real activity of the Society was displayed not in the legisla¬ 
ture, but in some important, though unofficial, negotiations with 
the Indians. The Quaker Memorial to the Governor in April 1756, 
before the declaration of war, while pleading for another attempt 
to preserve peace, had added : 

1 The New York Meeting for Sufferings was founded in 1759, also as a result 
of the war with France. The fullest account of Pennsylvania Quakerism between 
the Seven Years* and the Revolutionary Wars is found in Sharpless, Quakers in 
the Revolution , chaps, i-v. 


383 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


384 

“ We hope to demonstrate by our conduct that every occasion 
of assisting and relieving the distressed, and contributing towards 
the obtaining of peace in a manner consistent with our peace¬ 
able profession, will be cheerfully improved by us, and even 
though a much larger part of our estates should be necesssary 
than the heaviest taxes of a war can be expected to require, we 
shall cheerfully, by voluntary presents, evidence our sincerity 
therein.” 

Not only did they contribute liberally to the relief of the refugee 
settlers from the frontiers, but “ The Friendly Association for Gaining 
and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Means ” was 
formed under the leadership of such Friends as Israel Pemberton and 
Anthony Benezet, who had been foremost in opposition to the Quaker 
membership of the Assembly. These friends went out again and 
again beyond the frontier, at the peril of their lives to confer with 
the Indians, and none of the “ children of Onas ” (Penn) as the 
Indians called them came to any harm. With some of the German 
peace sects, they raised between five and six thousand pounds, which 
was partly applied to the ransom of prisoners, but mainly to an attempt 
to win back by gifts the Pennsylvania Indians to their old friendship. 
They believed, rightly as it proved, that these tribes were not 
irretrievably alienated, and that by a full and frank discussion of 
grievances, the situation might be cleared up. Between 1756 and 
1758 several conferences were held by the Governor and delegates 
from the legislature with these tribes, which representatives of the 
Friendly Association attended at the express request of the Indians, 
to ensure fair treatment, though their presence was not always 
welcomed by the colonial officials. Tedyuscung, chief of the Dela¬ 
wares, showed considerable skill in setting forth the old grievances 
of his people at the fraudulent dealings of the past, and in the end 
the wronged tribes received, in addition to the Quaker gifts, some 
compensation for their lost lands, while the former treaties of 
friendship were renewed. The Friendly Association was bitterly 
reproached by the “ Presbyterian ” party for its share in the 
negotiations, but there is no doubt that Israel Pemberton stated 
their true motives : 

If we can but be instrumental to restore peace to our country 
and retrieve the credit of it with our former kind neighbours, but 
of late bloody enemies, we shall have all the reward we desire. The 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 385 

name of a Quaker of the same spirit as William Penn is still in the 
highest estimation among their old men.” 1 

The frontier war flared out again in 1764 after the conspiracy 
of Pontiac, this time, however, mainly with the Algonquin and 
Iroquois Indians, and the Friendly Association again worked for 
peace.* 

But in the interval another Indian trouble brought deep concern 
and even division to the Philadelphia Quakers. Some twenty friendly 
Indians, mainly women and children, the last remnants of the once 
powerful Conestoga tribe, were murdered in December 1763 by a 
lynching party of Irish Presbyterians from Paxton. The crime was 
inspired partly by the general principle that the only good Indian 
was a dead Indian, partly by the wish to avenge the frontier’s sufferings 
at the hands of more warlike tribes, and partly by an unfounded 
suspicion of treachery. The whole tribe was extirpated, some were 
killed at their homes, and others in Lancaster gaol, where they had 
been placed for safety. The province as a whole was indignant, 
but the border settlers supported the “ Paxton boys,” who were 
never brought to justice. Growing bolder, they marched with 
two or three hundred sympathizers towards Philadelphia, declaring 
that they would destroy not only a band of Moravian Christian 

1 Quoted in Friend (Philadelphia), xlvi. 187. See also Charles Thomson, 
The Alienation of the Delaware and Shanxinese Indians. Thomson, as a young man, 
acted as secretary for Tedyuscung at some of the Conferences. In the Revolutionary 
War he was Secretary to the Continental Congress. The Gentleman's Magazine 
(1757, p. 474 and 1759, p. 109) gives brief reports of some of these negotiations. 
One of the current slanders of the time against the Quakers was revived in the 
correspondence columns of the Spectator (February 26, 1916), in the quotation of 
an official report containing the allegations of an Indian chief against the Friendly 
Association. He stated that some Quakers had urged the Iroquois chiefs of the 
Six Nations to spare the Pennsylvania settlers, “ but, if you incline to carry on 
a war against any nation, we have everything fit to kill men in plenty, such as 
guns, swords, hatchets, powder, lead, clothing, and provisions, which we are ready 
to furnish you with. ... You must kill the soldiers only, and not us. . . . 
You may kill men enough in other parts of the country without coming here.” 
This remarkable statement was sent by the officer who received it in 1757 to Lord 
Loudoun, Commander-in-Chief of the forces in America, and in the following 
year to Abercromby, his successor. Loudoun paid no attention to it, Abercromby 
forwarded it to the military commander in Philadelphia, who took no action. 
The work of the Friendly Association was carried on in the most open way, and 
it is incredible that any episode so flagrantly inconsistent with its professed aims 
and the principles of its leaders, should not have been trumpeted abroad by their 
opponents, if it had had any foundation in fact. 

» The New Jersey Indians were also involved in these negotiations, and Friends 
of that province formed a similar association for their benefit. In 1763, John 
Woolman paid a religious visit to the Indians of the Susquehanna Valley. 

25 


386 FRIENDS ABROAD 

Indians, who had been sent for shelter to the city, but the Quakers 
who had taken the lead in the Friendly Association. This was in 
February 1764. When these frontiersmen appeared in threatening 
array at Germantown on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the citizens 
armed themselves to resist and to defend their helpless clients. But 
force was not needed. The settlers had brought with them a state¬ 
ment of grievances, and through Franklin’s negotiations they were 
induced to lay these before the Governor (Richard Penn) and to 
return home. They did not obtain their most legitimate demand 
for an increased representation in the Assembly, but they were 
placated by the Governor’s offer of a reward for the scalps of hostile 
Indians, which turned their activities into that channel. They had 
left behind them trouble among the Friends. Many of the younger 
men had rushed to arms to defend the Indians and their elders, and 
had even used the meeting-house as a shelter for themselves and their 
weapons on that stormy February day. James Pemberton wrote of 
them to Dr. Fothergill : 

It was matter of sorrowful observation to behold so many 
under our name (it is supposed about two hundred) acting so contrary 
to the ancient and well-grounded principle of our profession, the 
testimony whereof suffered greatly on this occasion, and furnished 
our adversaries with a subject of rejoicing, who will make no 
allowance for the instability of youth ; they who take up arms being 
mostly such who could scarcely be expected to stand firm to the 
testimony upon a time of so sudden and uncommon a trial, or such 
who do not make much profession.” 

Many of these young men belonged to that section of the Society 
in Philadelphia which had supported Franklin’s defensive measures 
and which was to take active part in the Revolution. In March, 
their Monthly Meetings, through a committee, began to labour 
with them. From the committee’s periodical reports it appears 
that a considerable number at once acknowledged their error, some 
thirty or more of whom “ were in their minority, and appeared 
much unacquainted with the grounds of Friends’ testimony herein ” 
Some justified their action as the defence of the helpless against 
lawless violence and a few maintained the lawfulness of defensive 
war. The work of the committee went on until 1767, by which 
time many had made public acknowledgment of their fault to their 
meeting. A few were still convinced that they had acted rightly, 
but even these promised to be more circumspect in future. With 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 387 

this the meetings appeared satisfied, for no member was disowned. 
Samuel Wetherill, one of the “ fighting Quakers ” of the Revolu¬ 
tionary War, declared years afterwards that during the alarm “ not 
an individual of the Society appeared to discountenance the thing.” 
This statement is not borne out by contemporary letters and records ; 
probably the judgment of an English Friend represented the general 
view. It was, he admitted, “ a very singular and extraordinary 
case,” being to oppose an armed band of murderers, yet the full 
maintenance of the peace testimony was “ of very great importance 
to the whole Society.” 

In their petitions to the Governor the frontiersmen had included 
bitter complaints against the Quakers, who had (they said) showered 
presents upon the Indians, while refusing to help the distressed 
settlers. They even accused the Friendly Association, and in particular 
Israel Pemberton, of keeping up a private and treacherous corre¬ 
spondence with tribes in time of war. These charges were the signal 
for the opening of an angry pamphlet controversy between the 
“ Presbyterian ” and the “ Quaker ” parties on the general question 
of the responsibility of the Quaker Assembly for the outbreak of 
the Indian wars. The writers on both sides were violent and, as 
far as is known, Friends themselves took no part in the quarrel, 
except for one statement to the Governor drawn up by the Meeting 
for Sufferings in answer to the charges of the Paxton rioters. This 
document, which was presented to Richard Penn in the spring 
of 1764, reminded him that their past history both in England 
and America showed the clearness of Friends from all plots and 
conspiracies, and defended the action of the Friendly Association 
in its efforts to promote peace with the Indians. Friends had willingly 
subscribed considerable sums to the relief of sufferers on the 
frontiers, but the £5,000 raised for the work of Indian reconciliation 
had also been for their benefit. “ The chief part thereof hath been 
since expended in presents given at the public treaties (when they 
were sometimes delivered by the Governors of the province and 
at other times with their privity and permission) for promoting the 
salutary measures of gaining and confirming peace with the Indians 
and procuring the release of our countrymen in captivity.” The 
Proprietors had approved of this policy. As for the accusation of 
usurping political power the Meeting for Sufferings replied with 
truth that on the contrary it had dissuaded Friends from office. 

“ We are not conscious that as Englishmen and dutiful subjects 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


388 

we have ever forfeited our right of electing or being elected ; but 
because we could serve no longer in these stations with satisfaction 
to ourselves, many of us have chosen to forbear the exercise of these 
rights.” 1 

As the dispute between England and the American colonies 
passed first into resistance to the financial claims of the home 
Government, and then into a movement for independence and 
open war, the position of Friends in all the colonies was peculiarly 
difficult. In the years from 1765 to 1773 many, as leading citizens 
of their provinces and towns, took an active part by writings, 
speeches, and deeds in the opposition to any encroachment on colonial 
rights, thus carrying on the policy of the earlier Quaker colonists. 3 

Stephen Hopkins and Moses Brown in Rhode Island, John 
Dickinson, the Pembertons, and others in Philadelphia, all were 
concerned in these preliminary measures of resistance .3 Many 
Quakers were prosperous merchants, and so were specially affected 
by the Navigation Acts and the other attempts of England to 
restrict and control American trade. 

But as events moved irresistibly towards war, Friends had to 
reconsider their position. John Dickinson, whose Farmer's Letters 
of 1768 formed the best early statement of the American claims, 
and who wrote many state papers for the Continental Congress, 
refused to sign the Declaration of Independence. He believed that 
it was premature, and that the questions then in dispute could have 

1 The petition of the rioters to the Governor was reprinted as a pamphlet, 
A Declaration and Remonstrance of the Distressed and Bleeding Frontier Inhabitants 
of the Province of Pennsylvania, etc. (in D. 39). The reply of the Meeting for 
Sufferings is given in full, in Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution , p. 59. It may 
be noted that the petition, while charging Pemberton and his friends in the past 
with making private treaties with the Indians and encouraging them in their 
belief that they had lost their lands by fraud, says nothing of the allegation that 
they had promised weapons to the Six Nations. There is no doubt that such a 
charge would have been eagerly utilized by the petitioners if it had had the slightest 
chance of obtaining credit. One argument advanced in defence of the massacre 
is that in time of Indian war all Indians, even if professedly friendly, must be viewed 
as potential enemies, and interned or put to death. 

1 Fifty Friends were among the signatories to one of the non-importation 
agreements in 1765 (Thomas, History of Friends in America, p. 117). 

< 3 These men were all of Quaker origin or connection, but not all in member¬ 
ship. Stephen Hopkins was disowned for slave-holding in 1773, though he continued 
to worship with Friends throughout his life. He was one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. In 1774 Moses Brown joined the Society, previously 
freeing his slaves. John Dickinson seems never to have been in actual member¬ 
ship ; but for this question, see Quakers in American Colonies, pp. 559 foil., and 
Sharpless, Political Leaders of Provincial Pennsylvania, pp. 236 foil. 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 


3 8 9 

been solved by some method short of actual war. He fought, however, 
in the Revolution. Friends, as a body, had to make their choice. 
On the one side were the claims of liberty and justice. On the other 
was the testimony against war, and the old tradition of loyalty to 
the established Government. These were reinforced by the feeling 
which had grown during the past half-century that spiritual life 
was hindered by an active share in political movements. 

Of those who actively supported the war the majority naturally 
were on the Revolutionary side. They were disowned by their 
Monthly Meetings, when in membership—for it must be 
remembered that many “ Quakers ” were only called so by the 
public from their social connection with Friends or their attendance 
at religious meetings. Those who joined the British cause were 
dealt with in the same way, but their numbers were very small. 
The majority of Friends maintained a quiet opposition not only 
to all military activity, but to all active support of the Revolutionary 
government. This attitude gave rise to the general opinion that 
Friends were traitors and “Tories” (that is, Loyalists). Traitors 
they were not, for they gave no aid to the British. Loyalists the 
leading Friends in Philadelphia and New York undoubtedly were, 
though they were scrupulous in their abstention from all complicity 
with the war. Probably the majority of the New England Friends, 
and of the country Friends elsewhere, sympathized with the American 
cause. But they all united in a conscientious opposition to warlike 
measures, and a refusal to share in them. 

Dr. Fothergill, who from across the Atlantic had watched the 
development of the American crisis with an understanding which 
was wanting among his Majesty’s ministers, urged Pennsylvania 
Friends to accept the decision for national independence, and to 
support the liberties of America, by submitting to the general voice 
of the colonists, while firmly and calmly maintaining their opposition 
to war. 1 Possibly their position would have been easier had they 
taken this course, though in the heat of war, Governments are not 
very ready to enter into nice distinctions ; but, in giving this advice, 
Fothergill was more American than many of the Americans 
themselves. Actually Friends tried to maintain a policy of neutrality, 
and as a general rule they suffered equally at the hands of both 
contending parties. Their houses and farms were plundered, their 
meeting-houses were commandeered for troops or for the wounded. 

i Fide Letters quoted in Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution > p. 118. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


39 ° 

Personally they endured heavy distraints, in some cases imprisonment, 
and in a few actual maltreatment, while hardest of all to bear was 
the general odium which fell upon the sect and the wrench of 
separation from fellow members they held in high esteem. 1 Yet 
they kept steadily on the course they had chosen, maintained their 
meetings and their discipline, and helped their members both by 
advice and by material assistance. Whenever possible, during this 
time of war, representatives from New England and the Southern 
States attended Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and this no doubt 
helped Friends throughout the States in the maintenance of a 
consistent policy. They also kept up an affectionate intercourse by 
official Epistles and private correspondence with English Friends. 
The misunderstandings which for so many years after the peace 
continued to subsist between the two great English-speaking countries 
found no place within the Society. The English and Irish bodies 
sent generous gifts to the sufferers from the war, which were grate¬ 
fully remembered and returned in later times of need by American 
Friends. 

Intercourse between the different Meetings was greatly hampered. 
Overstrained military officers were apt to mistake harmless 
“ ministering Friends ” for British spies, and more than once the lives 
of such travellers were in imminent danger, yet by quiet faith and 
courage they were often allowed to pass where way seemed impossible. 
Even some missionary visits to Indian tribes were carried out. The 
English Government had adopted the bad expedient of employing 
Indian auxiliaries against the Americans, but on the most disturbed 
frontiers Friends were unmolested, a fact which their enemies 
took as clear proof of their treacherous collusion with the British 
forces. An incident recorded by George Dillwyn illustrates this 
Quaker immunity. The neighbourhood of Easton on the New York 
frontier was so harassed by raids from both armies that the American 
Government had advised the inhabitants to evacuate the districts. 
The Friends, however, remained and kept up their religious 
meetings. At one week-day meeting they were sitting with open 
doors in silent worship when an Indian came and peeped in at them. 
Seeing Friends sitting quietly together, he slipped inside the door, 


1 Not all, however, who were disowned fell under this description. Some 
whose conduct had long been a matter of concern took this opportunity of leaving 
the Society on a more respectable pretext, while others were merely “ birthright 
members” who cared little for the connection with Friends. 




THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 391 

followed by a company of his countrymen. They placed their weapons 
in a corner of the room, and took seats. When the meeting closed, 
Zebulon Hoxie, one of the Friends present, invited them to his 
house to refresh themselves, which invitation they accepted, and 
having partaken of his provisions quietly departed. Before going, 
however, the chief warrior, who could speak French, had a 
communication in that language with Robert Nesbitt, in which 
he told him they had come to the house intending to destroy all 
who were in it. Adding : “ When we saw you sitting with your 
door open without weapons of defence, we had no disposition to 
hurt you, we would have fought for you.” Yet this party had scalps 
with them. 1 

The difficulties of consistent conduct, and the divisions of opinion 
which harassed all Friends in North America, were intensified in 
the case of those in Pennsylvania, where they were still an important 
body, and where memories of their political control survived. But 
before describing their experiences a brief account may be given 
of the position of Friends during the war in the other provinces. 

New Jersey Friends in 1777 were forbidden by the American 
military authorities to attend their Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia, 
owing to the British occupation of the city. More than once during 
the war their meeting-houses were taken for barracks and hospitals, 
and they suffered particularly heavy losses by distraints and requisi¬ 
tions. Friends in Pennsylvania relieved them to the best of their 
ability, and at the close of the war English Friends sent generous 
help. A careful student of New Jersey Quakerism has written of 
this period : 

“ Many young men yielded to the impulse, which also drew 
away some of the older ones, to enlist in the cause of the Americans. 

. . . Despite trials consequent upon a position of neutrality among 
people alive with the spirit of warfare, they steadily maintained 
their principles and profession, although at the expense, in many 
cases, of goods and property. To all inquiries they replied, as one 
meeting stated in a special minute : 

“ ‘ We, the people called Quakers, ever since we were dis¬ 
tinguished as a Society, have declared to the world our belief in the 
peaceable tendency of the Gospel of Christ, and that, consistent 

1 The story is given in the British Friend\ 1851, p. 290, vide also L.V. 
Hodgkin’s version ** Fierce Feathers ” in A Book of Quaker Saints. The date is 
given as 1777 in The Journal of Rufus Hall (an eye-witness) in D. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


392 

therewith, we could not bear arms, nor be concerned in warlike 
preparations.’ ” 1 

When in 1775 the Committee of Safety of New York asked 
for a return of all male Quakers between the ages of sixteen and 
sixty, the Meeting for Sufferings refused to comply, on the grounds 
of a “ truly conscientious scruple.” Later in the year, when the city 
had been evacuated by many of the inhabitants through fear of 
bombardment by English ships, William Rickman, master of the 
Friends’ School, and a few other Friends remained, doing service 
in the meeting-house, which was used as a hospital. After its 
capture, Tryon, the British Governor of New York, applied to the 
Meeting for Sufferings for funds to provide stockings and other 
comforts for the troops, on the ground that some Quakers had 
been “ too busy and active in the present commotions.” The 
Meeting acknowledged with regret the “ deviation ” of some 
members, but firmly declined to make the proposed gift, as 
“ manifestly contrary to our religious testimony against war and 
fightings.” 2 

New England Friends maintained their peace principles very 
firmly during the war. At its outbreak the New England Meeting 
for Sufferings was formed, and it soon found work to do in the relief 
of distress in the town and neighbourhood of Boston during its 
siege by the English in the winter of 1775-6. Help came from 
England, while the Philadephia Meeting for Sufferings sent £2,540, 
mostly in gold, to the New England committee of relief. This 
committee, under the leadership of Moses Brown, of Rhode Island, 
visited Howe and Washington, the generals of the opposing armies, 
explaining that they wished to relieve civilian distress, without 
distinction of parties. They were not allowed to pass through the 
lines of the besiegers, but they were permitted to send part of their 
funds to be distributed by Boston Friends, and the remainder they 
themselves apportioned to three thousand families in the adjacent 
towns and villages. “It was a sort of school to us,” wrote Moses 
Brown, “ for we never saw poverty to compare.” In 1775 and again 
in 1776 the town of Salem, where the early Quakers had endured 
cruel persecution, publicly recorded its thanks to Friends for their 
generous help. “ Through these towns—many of them towns 
through which Quakers had been whipped—working in company 

1 Quakers in American Colonies , pp. 411-12 (chapter by A. M. Gummere). 

* Ibid., pp. 259-60. 




THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 


393 

with the Selectmen—the Friends, with personal painstaking care, 
dispensed their gifts of love.” 1 

What proved to be the most noteworthy of New England 
disownments on account of warlike activities, was that of Nathanael 
Greene, of Rhode Island, later Washington’s most trusted general. 
Though the Quaker farmer, his father, had brought him up with 
Puritan strictness, young Greene early showed an un-Quakerly 
fondness for dancing and for military science and practice. In both 
he was handicapped by lameness, but he pursued both with zest. 
His separation from Friends took place before the war. In July 1773 
he and his brother came under the notice of their Monthly Meeting 
for visiting “ a place in Connecticut of public resort, where they 
had no proper business.” In other words, they had attended a militia 
training camp. In September they were both disowned, and two 
years later the Rhode Island Assembly elected Nathanael Greene 
as their brigadier-general. There is a tradition that he was the 
third choice, two other men of more experience having refused, 
and that when the result of the voting was announced, he rose 
and said : “ Since the Episcopalian and the Congregationalist 

won’t, I suppose the Quaker must.” Another tradition gives him 
a Spartan mother, who dismissed him with the assurance that, though 
her grief at his choice of a soldier’s life was very great, it would 
be deeper if she were ever to hear that he had turned his back to 
the enemy. 2 What is certain is that, although at times he spoke 
bitterly of the narrowness of his early education, he always showed 
confidence in Friends. After the bloody battle of Guildford Court 
House, North Carolina, before his retreat he placed the wounded 
of both armies in the Friends’ meeting-house, and wrote to 
neighbouring Friends reminding them that he had been brought 
up in their Society, and appealing to them to help the sufferers, 
which they did by furnishing hospital supplies. 

In 1781 Abel Thomas and another Friend, through many 
difficulties and dangers, paid a visit of religious consolation to their 
brethren in Virginia and South Carolina. After narrowly missing 
death as spies from one section of the American Army and losing 

1 Quakers in American Colonies , p. 152 ; Annals of Salem, ii. 399. Moses 
Brown’s contemporary account was first published in the Pennsylvania Magazine 
of Politics and History , i. 168. 

* G. W. Greene, Life of Nathanael Greene, i. 69, 80, etc. There is a 
delightful account of Greene as a man and a soldier in Sir George Trevelyan’s 
George III and Charles Fox, vol. ii. ch. 16. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


394 

their horses at the hands of robbers, they still did not feel “ free ” 
(in Quaker language) to leave the district, and applied to General 
Greene for a pass. His answer dated June 7, 1781, was as follows : 

“ From the good opinion I have of the people of your profession, 
being bred and educated among them, I am persuaded your visit 
is purely religious, and in this persuasion have granted you a pass, 
and I shall be happy if your ministry shall contribute to the establish¬ 
ment of morality and brotherly kindness among the people, than 
which no country ever wanted it more. I am sensible your principles 
and professions are opposed to war, but I know you are fond of 
both political and religious liberty. ... In this laudable endeavour 
I expect at least to have the good wishes of your people, as well 
for their own ^kes as for ours, who wish to serve them upon all 
occasions, not inconsistent with the public good.” Armed with the 
permit the Friends finished their mission, though in its course they 
had to pass close to a battle. 

Other Rhode Island Friends were more peaceable than Greene. 
From the Journal of Job Scotty one of their members, it appears that 
early in the war the Deputy-Governor ordered the inhabitants to pro¬ 
duce all their fowling-pieces and small arms at the Court House, that 
the military resources of the district might be known. The Friends 
sent a written refusal to attend, stating their opposition to all war. 
The Deputy-Governor was satisfied, remarking that he wished 
all consciences to be free. The records of the New England Yearly 
Meeting at Providence, however, contain many “sufferings” of 
Friends during the war, from distraints of cattle and property and 
other losses. Job Scott himself was much exercised over the use of 
the Continental paper currency. At last he refused it and enjoyed 
“ peace of mind,” although he found life difficult since practically 
no other money was in circulation. When the British forces occupied 
Rhode Island, many people fled with their valuables from Providence. 
The Friends of the town, meeting together, decided to remain, 
and to do nothing to increase the panic. They were “ preserved 
in the stability of the unchangeable Truth.” 1 

The inhabitants of Nantucket suffered almost as severely as 
those of any district not actually ravaged by the war. An embargo 
was laid on their cod-fishing by the English Government, their 
whalers were captured by the enemy, and at times they were in 
danger of starvation, since the Americans refused to send them 
1 Journal of Job Scott. 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 395 

provisions, on the pretext that they supplied the British. William 
Rotch, a Quaker, was a large ship-owner and the chief proprietor 
of the island’s whaling fleet. 1 He had taken a large stock of muskets 
and bayonets in payment of a debt. T he muskets he sold as fowling- 
pieces to his whalers to shoot game and sea fowl in their coasting 
voyages. The bayonets he refused to sell. At the outbreak of the 
war both British and Americans wished to get hold of his stock. 
The American authorities sent over to requisition them, but Rotch 
refused :— 

“ The time had now come to support our testimony against 
war or forever abandon it. . . . My reasons for not furnishing 
the bayonets were demanded, and I answered : 4 As this instrument 
is purposely made and used for the destruction of mankind and I 
cannot put into one man’s hand to destroy another that which I 
cannot use myself in the same way, I refuse to comply with thy 
demand.’ ” This made, he said, a great noise in the neighbourhood, 
and his life was threatened. As for the bayonets— 44 I would gladly 
have beaten them into pruning hooks. As it was, I took an early 
opportunity of throwing them into the sea.” For his refusal, he 
was summoned before a court-martial, where he explained his position. 
“ The chairman of the committee, one Major Hawley, a worthy 
character, then addressed the committee, and said : 4 I believe Mr. 
Rotch has given us a candid account of the affair, and every man 
has a right to act consistently with his religious principles. But 
I am sorry we cannot have the bayonets for we want them very 
much.’ The Major was desirous of knowing more of our Friends’ 
principles, on which I informed him as far as he inquired. One 
of the committee (Judge Parr), in a pert manner, observed : 4 Then 
your principles are passive obedience and non-resistance.’ I replied : 

4 No, my friend, our principles are active obedience and passive 
suffering.’ I passed through no small trial on account of my 
bayonets.” Later on William Rotch was to prove as faithful to his 
principles in the French Revolution as he had been in the 
American. 

The Revolution brought much trouble to Friends in the South A 

1 Vide Memorandum Written by William Rotch in the Eightieth Tear of His Age 
(printed by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 1916). The three 
ships which brought the famous cargo of tea to Boston in 1773 were all owned by 
Rotch. 

3 The following facts are mainly taken from S. B. Weeks, Southern Quakers 
and Slavery. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


396 

In Virginia, Washington’s own State, the official attitude of the 
Society was uncompromisingly opposed to any breach with the 
established Government. Those who took part in the war on either 
side, by enlistment or otherwise, were disowned yet, during this 
period, many joined the Society. Historians suggest that these were 
shirkers trying to avoid military service. But the treatment accorded 
to Friends and the active campaign against slave-holding which they 
carried on during the war were not inducements for the unconvinced 
and unscrupulous to enter their ranks. It is true that in Virginia the 
earlier “ draft ” laws of the war exempted Quakers and Mennonites 
(this sect had been migrating southward from Pennsylvania during 
the last quarter of a century), but they endured heavy distraints, 
and their general refusal to use the Continental paper money or to 
pay war taxes involved them in great difficulty. Later an attempt 
was made to force them to serve. In 1777 fourteen Friends were 
drafted under the Militia law and taken from home. They steadily 
refused either to handle a musket or to eat the army provisions, 
but they were dragged on with the regiment until some fell ill under 
their hardships and were sent home. The others were brought to 
Washington’s camp at Valley Forge, with their muskets tied on 
their backs. Washington had ex-Quakers among his officers, and 
he had had some experience of Quaker scruples in the campaign 
of 1756. As soon as he heard of the arrival of the conscripts, he 
ordered them to be discharged and allowed them to go home. 1 
Another Friend was mercilessly flogged for refusing to act as guard 
over Burgoyne’s army, after its surrender in Virginia. 

In 1777 an oath or affirmation of allegiance to the State was 
imposed, the penalty of refusal being the confiscation of all weapons 
and the loss of the franchise and other civil rights. The minutes 
of the next Virginia Yearly Meeting showed that this stringent 
penalty had drawn some to conform. Local meetings were directed 
to caution their members “ not to join with or engage in any 
measures which may be carried on by war and bloodshed, or take 
any test that may bind them to join with either party while the 
contest subsists.” 

The Yearly Meeting of North Carolina (including South 
Carolina and Georgia) in its Epistle of 1776 denounced all insurrec¬ 
tions as “ works of darkness.” War taxes were left a matter for 
the individual conscience, and many paid. But all paid involuntarily 
* Gilpin, Exiles in Virginia, p. 181. 



THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 397 

to the support of both armies. Neither side, when in occupation 
of this territory, spared the well-filled barns and store-houses of 
Quaker farmers and merchants. The Georgia draft law exempted 
acknowledged Quakers, but in both Carolinas they were liable 
to very heavy fines—in one year the record amounts to £4,000 
and in another to £2,152, both presumably not reckoned in Conti¬ 
nental currency, but in “ hard money.” The penalty for refusing 
the test of allegiance was even more severe in these States than in 
Virginia. In both it was expulsion, but in South Carolina the exile 
who returned was liable to death. This provision was, however, 
too strong for public opinion, and after a few months it was assimilated 
to the Virginia law. In 1777 the Quakers of North Carolina addressed 
a reasoned statement to the Assembly, explaining why they could 
not declare their allegiance to the Revolutionary government. 

“ As we have always declared that we believed it to be unlawful 
for us to be active in war and fighting with carnal weapons, and 
as we conceive that the proposed affirmation approves of the present 
measures, which are carried on and supported by military force, 
we cannot engage in or join with either party therein, being bound 
by our principles to believe that the setting up and pulling down 
Kings and Governments is God’s peculiar prerogative, for causes 
best known to himself; and that it is not our work or business 
to have any hand or contrivance therein, nor to be busybodies in 
matters above our station ; so that, as we cannot be active either 
for or against any power that is permitted or set over us in the above 
respects, we hope that you will consider our principles a much stronger 
security to any state than any test that can be required of us. As 
we now are, and shall be, innocent and peaceable in our several 
stations and conditions under this present state, and for conscience’ 
sake are submissive to the laws, in whatever they may justly require, 
or by peaceably suffering what is or may be inflicted upon us, in 
matters in which we cannot be active for conscience’ sake.” 1 

This argument had its effect, for in 1780 the Assembly went 
so far as to pass an Act securing Quakers in the possession of their 
landed property, since malicious persons had attempted to oust them, 
on the plea that by refusing allegiance they had lost the protection 
of the law. After this there seems to have been no further trouble. 
When peace came in 1783 the Yearly Meeting told its members 
that, though it had dissuaded them from taking any test “ to either 
* Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery , p. 191. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


398 

of the powers while contending,” they were now left “ to the freedom 
of their own minds.” In other words, the Government was now 
again established, and while Friends would not take part in war 
they accepted its verdict. Under the new authorities Quakers 
were either specifically or tacitly exempted from all military service 
in the Carolinas and Georgia, and in Virginia the penalties were 
comparatively light until the outbreak of the second war with 
England. 

The difficulties which harassed Friends during the war were 
intensified in the case of the Quakers of Pennsylvania. The numbers 
of the Society were still large—they were estimated at 30,000 at 
this period—and it was natural that those who mistrusted their 
intentions should fear the influence of so important and compact 
a body. At first, as has been said, the Quaker merchants of Phila¬ 
delphia united with the other leaders of the province in resistance 
of the claims of the home Government. Fifty, including the Pember¬ 
tons and Whartons, were among the four hundred merchants who 
signed the non-importation agreement evoked by the Stamp Act 
of 1765. A letter was sent to the London Meeting for Sufferings 
explaining their reasons for this course. In 1766 they wrote again 
to inform English Friends that in Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
the rejoicings on the repeal of the Act were accompanied by less 
riotous proceedings than in the other States, “ to which the conduct 
and conversation of Friends hath in some measure tended.” The 
“ tea-party,” also, which Philadelphia held in 1773, was of a milder 
and more decorous character than the renowned one at Boston. 
The tea had been consigned to the Quaker firms of Wharton and 
Drinker, but the pressure of public opinion prevented its unloading, 
and the ship had to put about and return to England. The Whartons 
advanced to the captain sufficient money to cover the expenses 
of his unexpected and unprofitable voyage. 

As the situation grew more acute, the cleavage of opinion widened. 
Philadelphia had always possessed many Friends of the Logan 
type, wealthy, well-educated, public-spirited, not principled against 
defensive war, and taking little active part in the religious life of the 
Society. Among these Friends were those who had refused to leave 
the Assembly in 1756, who had supported its war policy, and had 
encouraged the resort to arms against the “ Paxton boys.” Now 
they prepared to cast in their lot with the Americans. Three men 
of Quaker connection were among the chief organizers of the 


399 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 

Continental Congress of 1774, held in Philadelphia. They were 
Charles Thomson, not himself a Friend, but formerly master of the 
Friends’ School and clerk to Tedyuscung at the Indian Conferences, 
John Dickinson, whose membership in the Society is dubious, and 
Thomas Mifflin, an undoubted Friend. Of the three Charles 
Thomson became Secretary to the Congress, Dickinson was one 
of its leading spirits until the actual decision for war, and Mifflin 
won fame as a Revolutionary general and later as Governor of the 
State. They were all moderates in policy, and through their influence 
it was hoped to win over the “ Quaker party,” and even the Society 
itself. But as the movement for independence grew, the “ Presby¬ 
terians ” gained power and support in the Pennsylvania legislature. 
Under their influence in 1776 the constitution of Pennsylvania 
and Penn’s ancient charter were annulled and replaced by a 
Republican Government. This extreme course frightened back many 
of the moderates into Toryism (or support of England) and alienated 
the whole body of Friends, who wrote regretfully of “ the happy 
constitution under which we and others long enjoyed tranquillity 
and peace.” 1 

For some time Friends were in a balance of opinion, but as the 
movement in America became more violent, they fell back upon 
their old testimony against revolution. As early as June 1774 the 
Meeting for Sufferings was advising Friends to abstain from the 
excitements of public meetings, and in September the Yearly Meeting 
followed this up by an address to all Friends in America, reminding 
them that the experience of their forefathers in the Civil War had 
led them to the conviction of the unlawfulness of all wars and 
fightings. The Meeting reiterated the advice of Fox in 1685 : 

“ Whatever bustlings or troubles or tumults or outrages should 
rise in the world, keep out of them $ but keep in the Lord’s power, 
and in the peaceable truth that is over all, in which power you seek 
the peace and good of all men, and live in the love which God has 
shed abroad in your hearts, through Jesus Christ, in which love 

1 Meeting for Sufferings , 12th mo. 20, 1776. It was Dickinson who wrote 
the “ Liberty Song,” a line of which gave the new Republic its motto—“ By 
uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.” But he had tried to carry on negotiations 
in the spirit of another of his aphorisms— ‘ The cause of liberty is a cause of too 
much dignity to be sullied by turbulence and tumult ”—and as the tide of passion 
rose the control of affairs was swept out of his hands. It has been said that “ his 
life was typical of Quaker influence (in Pennsylvania), potent to the very outbreak 
of war, suddenly and strikingly impotent after it becomes a fact ” (j Quakers in 
American Colonies , p. 56o). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


400 

nothing is able to separate you from God and Christ” 1 Three 
months later the Meeting for Sufferings recorded a minute (De¬ 
cember 15, 1774) regretting that the Pennsylvania Assembly had 
approved the proceedings of the Continental Congress. “ Which 
contain divers resolutions very contrary to our Christian profession 
and principles. And as there are several members of our religious 
society who are members of that assembly, some of whom we have 
reason to apprehend, have either agreed to the late resolves, which 
are declared to be unanimous, or not manifested their dissent in such 
a manner as a regard to our Christian testimony would require of 
them, there being a danger of such being drawn into further incon¬ 
sistencies of conduct in their public stations, the following Friends 
are desired to take an opportunity of informing them of the trouble 
and sorrow they brought on their brethren, who are concerned 
to maintain our principles on the ancient foundations, and to excite 
them to greater watchfulness, etc., to avoid agreeing to proposals, 
resolutions, or measures so inconsistent with the testimony of 
truth.” 3 

In January 1775 the Meeting urged members (who “some of 
them without their consent or knowledge ”) had been nominated 
to public offices to withdraw, and Monthly Meetings were asked 
to deal with all inconsistencies of conduct. Throughout this and 
the following winter meetings were kept busy at the work. 
President Sharpless, who made a careful study of this period, estimated 
that of the thirty thousand Friends in Pennsylvania four or five 
hundred asserted themselves openly in the American cause, and 
five or six individuals are known to have joined the British forces. 
All these were disowned. Thomas Mifflin was the first to go, 
followed by a host of less prominent men. They gave cause for their 
disownment, for John Adams wrote from Philadelphia in 1775 
that it was a ludicrous sight “ to see whole companies of armed 
Quakers in uniform going through the manual .”3 This is confirmed 
by James Pemberton’s account to Fothergill in May of that year. 
“ A military spirit prevails, the people are taken off from employment, 
intent on instructing themselves in the art of war, and many younger 
members of our Society are daily joining with them.” At least an 

1 Bowden, History of Friends in America, ii. 298. There are various copies of 
the letter in D., e.g. Tracts, C. 147. 

1 Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution, p. 107. 

I Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 131. 


THE TV JR OF INDEPENDENCE 401 

hundred and forty were dealt with and disowned by two Monthly 
Meetings in the city of Philadelphia for such causes as the following : 
“ Acting as soldier in the American Army.” “ Joining the British 
Army ” (one case). “ Fitting out an armed vessel which may 
prove the cause of shedding human blood.” “ Paying fines in 
lieu of military service.” “ Making weapons of war for the 
destruction of his fellow-men.” “ Being in an engagement where 
many were slain.” “ Holding a commission for furnishing supplies 
to one of the belligerents.” 1 

At the same time there were a considerable number of disown- 
ments for slave-holding. The influence of the most spiritually 
minded and most honoured members of the Society was unflinchingly 
set against slavery and war. Among these leaders was Anthony 
Benezet, already mentioned in connection with the events of 1755 
and 1756. Born in 1713, of a French Huguenot family, he was 
only two years old when his parents fled with him to England to 
escape persecution. In 1727 he joined Friends, and four years later 
he emigrated to Pennsylvania. There he devoted the rest of his 
long life to the interests of the Society and of his fellow-men, working 
by personal influence and his pen on behalf of the slaves and the 
oppressed. His Historical Account of Guinea , read by Clarkson in 
1785 when working for a University prize, gave him the impulse 
to his campaign against the slave-trade. Benezet had some of 
Woolman’s transparent simplicity and benevolence, though he was 
a man of more education. For some years he was master of a Friends* 
school in the city. 

In 1755, after the hapless Acadians were banished from their 
homes by the British Government, he was single-handed a relief 
committee for the five hundred quartered in Philadelphia. 2 He 
built them houses, collected clothing and money, and found them 
employment. In fact, his sympathy for these men of his old race 
impelled him to such efforts for their welfare that one refugee feared 
that this benevolence could not be disinterested, but that their helper 
intended to sell them as slaves. 

He was a leading member of the Friendly Association, and 
until his death in 1784 worked untiringly for the Indians. But 
above all he worked for peace. His hatred of war was intense. 
According to his first biographer, Vaux, he once addressed an 

* Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution, pp. 132-4. 

* The story of the Acadians is familiar from Longfellow’s Evangeline. 

26 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


402 

“ energetic and pathetic ” letter to Frederick the Great, remonstrating 
with him for his share in the miseries inflicted by conquest, but this 
address does not seem to have survived. He used all his endeavours 
towards a peaceful solution of the dispute with England, and even 
after hostilities had broken out, published pamphlets expounding his 
peaceable gospel to his warring countrymen. In one he wrote : 
“ Let us all sincerely ask our common Father for help to pray— 
not for the destruction of our enemies, who are still our brethren, 
but for an agreement with them.” 

In 1774 he visited many of the deputies to the Continental 
Congress, pleading with them for the abolition of slavery and the 
maintenance of peace. Among them was Patrick Henry, but he 
(as Benezet recorded the interview) at last remarked that “ it was 
strange to him to find some of the Quakers manifesting a disposition 
so different from that I had described. I reminded him that many 
of these had no other claim to our principles than as they were children 
or grandchildren of those who professed those principles. I suppose 
his remark principally arose from the violent spirit which some 
under our name are apt to show, more particularly in the Congress.” 1 
This was a fair enough description of many of those disowned on 
account of the war. The minute of disownment generally stated 
that by the acts enumerated the member had “separated himself 
from religious fellowship with us,” and expressed a hope for his 
future restoration. This was fulfilled in several cases. Owen Biddle, 
a leading Friend, repented and applied for reinstatement, giving 
out a “ testimony of denial,” or acknowledgment of his fault. The 
same course was followed by two young men, Peter and Mordecai 
Yarnall, who later became well-known ministers in the Society. 
Peter Yarnall had acted as assistant surgeon in the Revolutionary 
Army, and had also gained money by a share in a privateer. In 
1780 he was reconverted to Quakerism by the preaching of 
Samuel Emlen at a funeral he attended. He showed his sincerity 
by relinquishing his privateering profits and trying to restore them 
to the rightful owners 5 he also gave a public testimony of repentance 
to his former Monthly Meeting, which reinstated him.* There 
were other instances, but, of course, the majority of the disowned 
Friends were permanently lost to the Society. 

Meanwhile, as the leaders of the Revolution had established 

1 Vaux, Memoirs of Anthony Benezet , p. 64. 

1 British Friend, 1850, pp. 63, 91. 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 403 

an independent Government in the several States, Friends had to 
decide on their course. The one adopted was neither popular nor 
easy, but it seems to have been accepted without hesitation by the 
majority of the members, on whichever side their sympathies 
might lie. 

Friends were to take no part in warlike measures, and to give 
no assistance to either side, but they were also as far as possible to 
maintain a quiet testimony against revolution, by a refusal to 
acknowledge the powers of the de facto Government. In Januarv 
1775 the Meeting for Sufferings had thrown down the gauntlet 
by publishing a “ Testimony,” which stated that the principles 
of Friends were “to discountenance and avoid every measure 
tending to excite disaffection to the King as supreme magistrate, 
or to the legal authority of his government.” “ We are therefore,” 
the document continued, “ incited by a sincere concern for the 
peace and welfare of our country publicly to declare against every 
usurpation of power and authority in opposition to the laws and 
Government, and against all combinations, insurrections, conspiracies, 
and illegal assemblies ; and as we are restrained from them by the 
conscientious discharge of our duty to Almighty God, ‘ by whom 
Kings reign and Princes decree justice,’ we hope through his 
assistance and favour to be enabled to maintain our testimony against 
any requisition which may be made of us, inconsistent with our 
religious principles, and the fidelity we owe to the King and his 
government.” 

Dr. Fothergill, in England, was an acute critic of the royal 
policy, and had even told the Speaker of the House of Commons, 
in conversation, that England had been unjust to America and “ought 
to bear the consequences and alter her conduct,” or the “ empire 
would be divided and ruined.” To him this address seemed too 
unquestioning in its loyality. Yet the language was not warmer 
than that used by the Continental Congress six months later. Even 
after Lexington and Bunker’s Hill, that body on July 6th declared : 
“ We mean not to dissolve that union (with England) . . . which 
we sincerely wish to see restored,” and on the 8th it adopted an 
address to the King couched in the most loyal terms. 1 

1 This account of Pennsylvania Quakerism during the Revolution is mainly 
based on Bowden, Friends in America , vol. ii. ; Gilpin, Exiles in Virginia ; 
Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution , and his chapter on the same subject in Quakers 
in the American Colonies. Dickinson was largely responsible for the drafting of 
the early congressional documents. 


404 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


But, when in 1776, Congress had resolved on the dissolution 
of the Union, the Friends still maintained their old position. The 
Meeting for Sufferings on January 20, 1776, issued a fresh 
“Testimony,” which next year served as one of the chief counts 
in the indictment against leading Philadelphia Quakers. It was 
headed : “ The Ancient Testimony of the people called Quakers, 
renewed with respect to the King and Government ; and touching 
the commotions now prevailing in these and other parts of America, 
addressed to the people in general.” It opened with a strong plea 
for peace, and for the maintenance of the “ happy connexion we 
have heretofore enjoyed with the kingdom of Great Britain, and our 
just and necessary subordination to the King and those who are 
lawfully placed in authority under him,” and encouraged Friends 
firmly to maintain their principles. 

The document was signed by James Pemberton, as was the later 
pronouncement of December 1776, already quoted. The Yearly 
Meeting of 1776 counselled a policy which amounted to neutrality. 
Friends were to keep out of public office and the “ present commo¬ 
tions,” to be prompt in relief of sufferers “ not only of our own, 
but of every other society and denomination,” to be quietly loyal 
to the King, and to be patient under suffering. This “ meek but 
invincible ill-will ” (as Sir George Trevelyan has described the 
official Quaker attitude to the Revolution) 1 * 3 brought the whole 
sect into disfavour. Thomas Paine (later author of the Rights of 
Man\ one of the chief pamphleteers on the American side, in a 
fierce rejoinder, printed as an appendix to his famous Common Sense , 
advised Friends to proclaim such doctrines to the enemy, rather 
than to those who were fighting for freedom.* As has been said, 
it is impossible to calculate the exact balance of opinion within the 
Society. President Sharpless says : “In one sense they were Loyalists, 
and it is quite probable that the personal sympathies of many of them 
were with the British cause. But they were innocuous Loyalists ; 
they were neither spies on American movements, nor did they flee 
for protection to British headquarters .”3 On the other hand, many, 
besides those who openly came out on the American side and in 
consequence lost their membership, must have been in secret sympathy 
with the Revolution. On the vexed question of the Continental 

1 American Revolution, iii. 59. 

3 Paine’s father was an English Quaker. 

3 Sharpless, Quakers in Revolution , p. 131. 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 


405 

money the Yearly Meeting refused to give any decision, though 
some Friends felt that the testimony against Revolution (perhaps 
mingled with a natural reluctance on the part of solid business men 
to handle any currency so wildly inflated) forced them to refuse it. 1 

In June 1777 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law ordering 
all the inhabitants to take an oath or affirmation of allegiance to 
the State of Pennsylvania and the United States, and to abjure for ever 
all connection with the King and Government of Great Britain. 
The majority of the Quakers stood firm, but the refusal to side 
with the new Government told heavily against them during the 
anxieties of the following autumn. 

In September, Philadelphia was occupied by the British army 
under General Howe. A minute of the Monthly Meeting records 
the conduct of Friends in this crisis : “ On the 29th of the 9th 
month 1777, being the day in course for holding our Monthly 
Meeting, a number of Friends met, when the present situation 
of things being considered, and it appearing that the King’s army 
are near entering the city, at which time it may be proper the 
inhabitants should generally be at their habitations in order to preserve 
as much as possible peace and good order on this solemn occasion, 
it is therefore proposed to adjourn this Monthly Meeting.” 3 

As Howe approached Philadelphia, the Continental Congress, 
which was preparing to remove to Lancaster, recommended the 
disarmament and arrest of all persons suspected of British leanings. 
Moreover, “ the several testimonies which have been published 
since the commencement of the present contest between Great 
Britain and America, and the uniform tenor of the conduct and 
conversation of a number of persons of considerable wealth, who 
profess themselves to belong to the Society of people commonly 
called Quakers, render it certain and notorious that these persons 
are, with much rancour and bitterness, disaffected to the American 
cause ; that, as these persons will have it in their power, so there 
is no doubt it will be their inclination to communicate intelligence 

* “ In the later years of the war the Government paper was at a discount of 
three hundred, seven hundred, and at last of a thousand to one ” (Sir G. 
Trevelyan, George the Third and Charles Fox , i. 301). The passage gives a vivid 
account of the evils of depreciation. 

a “ The Quakers alone gave no sign of perturbation and calmly pursued their 
ordinary avocations, amidst the general panic and flurry. It seemed (said an 
American writer) as if, in their aversion to all military operations, they regarded 
even running away, that very material part of battle, as opposed to the principles of 
their Society” (Trevelyan, American Revolution, iv. 368). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


406 

to the enemy, and in various other ways, to injure the counsels and 
arms of America.” In accordance with this resolution, about forty 
leading Quakers and Episcopalians were arrested, and their houses 
and private papers searched for evidence of treason. The records 
of the Meeting for Sufferings were also confiscated to be examined 
by Congress for matter of a political nature. Parole was offered 
to the suspects, on condition that they remained within their houses. 
All the Quakers, and some others, refused the offer. “ They said 
they had committed no offence, and that it was an outrage to throw 
citizens into jail without a charge and present a test to them as if 
they had ever been guilty of misconduct.” 1 

Among those arrested were Israel and James Pemberton, 
Samuel Fisher, Henry Drinker, Thomas Gilpin, and John Hunt. 
The last-named was one of the two English Friends sent out by 
the London Meeting for Sufferings to advise in the Assembly diffi¬ 
culties of 1756, who subsequently settled in Philadelphia. In the 
charges levelled against the Quakers, Congress relied mainly on 
the publications of the Yearly Meeting and the Meeting for 
Sufferings, particularly that of December 1776, which was inter¬ 
preted as preaching sedition. These papers were published by order 
of Congress over the signature of Charles Thomson, Secretary, 
and with them another document, always afterwards known among 
Friends as the “ Spanktown forgery.” This, it was said, had been 
found by General Sullivan among the British baggage captured on 
Staten Island ; it consisted of notes on the disposition of the American 
troops, headed, “Information from Jersey, 19th August, 1777,” 
and signed, Spanktown Yearly Meeting.” The paper was claimed 
by the more violent revolutionaries as proof positive of a treasonable 
connection between the British forces and official Quakerism. Its 
origin was never discovered, but Friends had no difficulty in showing 
it to be a clumsy fabrication. It mentioned the landing of General 
Howe, which did not take place until August 22nd, three days 
after the supposed date of the information, and the signature, 
“Spanktown Yearly Meeting,” was unlike that of any official 
document of Friends. Moreover, there was no such body as 
Spanktown ” Yearly Meeting, although a Quarterly Meeting 
was held at Rahway, part of which town was sometimes known as 
Spanktown. 

But it was much less easy for the suspects to regain their 
1 Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution , p. 154. 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 407 

liberty. The responsibility for the arrest seemed to be divided 
between Congress and the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania. 
To both bodies the prisoners as a whole, and the Quakers in particular, 
addressed remonstrances. Another was sent to the Council signed 
on behalf of the Yearly Meeting by more than a hundred Friends. 
In this they declared : “ We are led out of all wars and fightings 
by the principles of grace and truth in our own minds by which 
we are restrained either as private members of society, or in any 
of our meetings, from holding a correspondence with either army, 
but are concerned to spread the testimony of truth and peaceable 
doctrines of Jesus Christ, . . . and we deny in general terms all 
charges and insinuations which in any degree clash with this our 
profession.” The prisoners were equally emphatic. James Pember¬ 
ton, Clerk of the Meeting for Sufferings, one of those on whom 
suspicion fell most heavily, wrote later to Robert Morris : “ I have 
never had at any time the least correspondence with General Howe 
or any British commander or others concerned in the military 
operations against America, nor do I intend to have.” In an “ Address 
to the people of Pennsylvania,” the prisoners defended the Meeting 
for Sufferings document of December 1776 : “The testimony of 
the Quakers is against all wars and fightings, and against entering 
into military engagements of any kind ; surely, then, it was the 
right of the representatives of that Society to caution their members 
from engaging in anything contrary to their religious principles.” 

The Council, however, ordered those arrested to take an oath 
or affirmation of allegiance to the State and, in the event of their 
refusal, to be deported to Winchester, Virginia. In spite of the 
protests of the prisoners, their families, and friends, no trial was 
held, no evidence offered, and no formal accusation brought against 
them. They were hurried away ; but with indomitable perseverance 
they applied to Chief Justice McKean for writs of Habeas Corpus. 
These were granted by him and served during the journey on the 
military escort, but the latter refused to obey. The exiles aptly quoted 
a sentence from an address by Congress to the British nation in 
1774 : “We hold it essential to English liberty that no man be 
condemned unheard, or punished for a supposed offence without 
having an opportunity of making his defence.” 

In all, twenty suspected “ Loyalists ” were deported, of whom 
seventeen were Quakers. They kept a careful and methodical diary 
of their experiences, from which and from the artless pages of 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


408 

Elizabeth Drinker’s Journal (she, the wife of one exiled Friend, 
was forced to stay in Philadelphia) a vivid impression can be gathered 
of their fluctuating hopes and fears. On the whole, after the first 
illegal haste, they were well treated, given a fairly wide parole, 
allowed to worship with local Friends and, at their own expense, 
to choose their lodgings. But they were hurried away without 
sufficient preparations to meet the winter. In March 1778 Thomas 
Gilpin, an elderly man, died of pneumonia, and soon afterwards 
John Hunt succumbed to blood-poisoning. The authorities relented, 
and in April the remaining Friends were allowed to return. Though 
the Council decided that “ the whole expenses of arresting and 
confining the prisoners sent to Virginia, the expenses of their 
journey, and all other incidental charges, be paid by the said 
prisoners,” yet a half-apology was made, inasmuch as the escort was 
ordered to treat them “ with that polite attention and care which 
is due from men who act on the purest motives to gentlemen 
whose stations in life entitle them to respect, however much they 
may differ in political sentiment from those in whose power they 
are.” 

Their friends in Pennsylvania had been working hard for their 
release. After the battle of Germantown in October 1777, a com¬ 
mittee appointed by Yearly Meeting visited both armies to explain 
to Washington and General Howe the basis of their testimony 
for peace. They were well received, and convinced Washington 
that the Spanktown document was a forgery and that they were 
innocent of any treasonable intent. Years later, when Washington 
was President, he met again one of the deputation, Warner Mifflin, 
cousin of his general, and inquired : “ Mr. Mifflin, will you now 
please tell me on what principle you were opposed to the Revolution ? ” 
“ Yes, Friend Washington, upon the principle that I should be 
opposed to a change in the present Government. All that was ever 
secured by Revolution is not an adequate compensation for the poor 
mangled soldiers, and for the loss of life and limb.” “ I honour 
your sentiments,” replied Washington, “ for there is more in them 
than mankind has generally considered.” In fact, Washington’s 
treatment of Friends was invariably courteous and considerate, 
and on their part was repaid by esteem. When four of the prisoners’ 
wives visited Valley Forge, to plead for their husbands, they had 
nothing but praise to give to their reception by the general and 
his wife, while he, in private letters to his subordinates, secured 


THE TV JR OF INDEPENDENCE 


409 

concessions for the anxious women. “ Humanity,” he wrote, 
“ pleads strongly on their behalf.” 

Meanwhile the lot of Friends in Pennsylvania had been far 
from comfortable. If the Loyalists of Philadelphia had welcomed 
the advent of the British troops, the views of the quiet Quakers, 
at any rate, were soon changed by their behaviour. The soldiers 
were drunken and riotous, and the officers introduced a rout of 
balls, theatres, and card-playing which transformed the city and, 
as the meetings sorrowfully admitted, led away some of their own 
younger members. In the country districts, still held by the 
Americans, Friends endured many fines and imprisonments for 
their refusal to take part in the war. 

When in the late spring the British Army withdrew and the 
American troops under Benedict Arnold entered the city, political 
power was seized by extremists, mostly of the old “ Presbyterian ” 
party. Moderate men, even those as deeply attached to the American 
cause as General Mifflin and Robert Morris, were insulted and 
molested, while their old enemies set to work to make life as uncom¬ 
fortable as possible to any Quaker. It was not surprising that in 
times of rejoicing for victory their unlighted windows were broken, 
or that in times of anxiety the mob threatened to hang all Quakers 
and Tories. But those in power went further than this. Two 
Friends who were undoubtedly guilty of overt acts against the 
Government were hung on the charge of high treason, as scapegoats 
for more dangerous men who had followed the British into 
safety. 

One, Abraham Carlisle, a carpenter, had been employed by 
the British to give out passes through the military lines between 
the city and the countryside. It was admitted that he had discharged 
his business well and he claimed that he had undertaken it in the 
hope of in some degree alleviating the sufferings of war. The other, 
John Roberts, a country miller, had been deeply stirred by the treat¬ 
ment of the Virginia exiles. He was so carried away by indignation 
that he went to the British headquarters and entreated Howe to 
send out a rescue party to intercept the prisoners on their journey 
to Virginia. The proposal was not accepted, but, having thus burnt 
his boats, Roberts took shelter with the British and was accused 
of acting as guide to their foraging parties. Both cases aroused much 
sympathy ; petitions for reprieve were sent in signed by many 
citizens, even by the judges and jurors concerned in the trials. 


4 io FRIENDS ABROAD 

Friends had officially warned both men against their course 
of action, and they were considered to have lost their 
membership by disregarding the warning. The Meeting for 
Sufferings, therefore, did not intervene on their behalf, but 
Friends paid frequent visits to them in prison before their 
execution. They were found to be in a resigned and religious 
frame of mind, admitting the errors of their conduct. There were 
other more innocent sufferers. Not only were houses and farms 
plundered and laid waste, but in addition to the distraints for war 
purposes the test of allegiance imposed in 1778 weighed heavily 
on Friends. Shortly after the return of the exiles, they themselves 
largely participating, the Meeting for Sufferings issued another minute, 
not less objectionable from the patriotic standpoint than any which 
had preceded it, urging Friends to subscribe to no tests, and to give 
no aid to the war.” 1 

The test was exacted of all teachers, with the consequence that 
Friends’ schools were seriously crippled. In spite of a petition from 
the Meeting for Sufferings, that the Assembly should respect the 
old tradition under which Pennsylvania had been an “asylum for 
tender consciences,” several Friends were imprisoned for nearly 
a year in Lancaster gaol on account of these tests. The most flagrant 
case was that of a little company of Friends on the frontier at 
Catawissa. The district was harassed by Indian raids stirred up by 
the British, but the Quakers were unmolested. This was considered 
clear proof of guilty collusion with the Indians. The two settlers, 
Moses Roberts and Job Hughes, were arrested and taken in irons 
to Lancaster, where for months they lay imprisoned, while their 
wives and families were evicted from the farms and reduced to hard 
straits. Yet, on the other hand, another Quaker frontiersman, 
old Benjamin Gilbert and his family, were carried off as prisoners 
by a tribe of Indians fighting for the British. After enduring excessive 
hardships they were brought to Montreal, and exchanged, but the 
old man succumbed to the treatment he had undergone.* The 

1 Quakers in the Revolution , p. 177. 

* jT°j tll ! S **l st * nce . In( iian troubles and those given in earlier chapters, may 
be added the following : “ Just prior to the Revolutionary War the Quaker 
frontier m Georgia began to waver somewhat on account of the Indian troubles, 
and meetings were held irregularly. The climax came when Tamar Kirk Menden¬ 
hall and her eldest son were killed by the Indians and the youngest son held in 
captivity for about two years. It is probable, however, that in this case also that 
these Friends did not uphold the usual Quaker testimony of fearlessness and 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 411 

repeated protests by the Meeting for Sufferings concerning the 
harsh treatment meted out to many Friends at last stirred the 
Assembly’s Committee of Grievances to take up the matter. A set 
of test questions on the views of Friends as to the authority of the 
American Government was sent to the Meeting for answer, and 
it was asked to supply the Committee with copies of all published 
Epistles and Testimonies during the past seven years. The Meeting, 
in a written reply, declined to answer the questions on the ground 
that, as their gatherings were not political, such matters could not 
be discussed in them. Friends always, however, maintained a testi¬ 
mony against war, and on that account could not join actively in 
“ measures which tend to create or promote disturbances or 
commotions in the government under which we are placed ; and 
many of our brethren, from a conviction that war is so opposite to 
the nature and spirit of the Gospel, apprehend it their duty to refrain 
in any degree from voluntarily contributing to its support.” Such 
a reply was unlikely to conciliate governmental opinion in their 
favour, unless by its very candour. 

Meanwhile the Society went steadily on in the maintenance 
of its testimonies, and disowned those who, in any way, fell below 
its standard, whether for laxity of conduct, for slave-holding, or 
for warlike activities. Among the disowned were some who still 
clung to the Quaker doctrines and Quaker modes of worship, and 
who could not feel at home in any other Church. But they had 
separated themselves too deeply from the Society and with too full 
a conviction of justification to return. 

“ They served actively in the armies on the American side, 
they appeared in the Committee of Public Safety, they were seated 
in the legislature, they were concerned in the printing of the 
Continental money.” 1 

Samuel Wetherill, for instance, a minister among Friends, in 
1778 not only took the oath of allegiance, but supplied Washington’s 
destitute army at Valley Forge with a much-needed consignment 

trust, as they had retreated from their homesteads earlier in the year, and had 
returned to gather the ripened grain. ... It would seem . . . that the safety 
of Friends lay in the consistent attitude of peace, that set them apart in the eyes of 
the savages ” (Kelsey, Friends and the Indians , p. 73). 

1 History of the Religious Society of Friends , Called by some the Free Quakers, 
by Charles Wetherill (Philadelphia, 1894, privately printed). This is a spirited 
vindication by the descendant of one of the original “Fighting Quakers” of 
the action of his ancestor and his associates. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


412 

of cloth from his own factory. He was disowned in 1779. In 1780 
he and others of the disowned Friends formed themselves into a 
little Society, meeting for worship at the houses of its members. 
Among these were Timothy Matlock, a member of the Committee 
of Public Safety, one of the few disowned Quakers who used his 
influence in public life openly against his orthodox brethren, 
Colonel Clement Biddle, Gates’ quartermaster at Valley Forge, 
Peter Thomson, printer of the Continental money, Lydia Darragh, 
who during the British occupation of Philadelphia warned Washing¬ 
ton of a projected sortie by the enemy, and Betsy Ross (later Claypole), 
a needlewoman, to whom tradition points as the maker of the first 
Stars and Stripes. The little body, which claimed to be the true 
Society of Friends, but which was generally known as the “ Free 
Quakers,” drew up a constitution or discipline of more than Quaker 
simplicity. There was to be no creed, no testimonies, no heresies ; 
“ no one who believed in God should be excommunicated or 
disowned for any cause whatever,” moral or theological. Self- 
defence, and military service in “ defensive war,” were expressly 
permitted. A few other small meetings in Chester County, Mary¬ 
land, and Massachusetts, were affiliated to the main body. When 
this handful of about a hundred persons claimed, on the grounds 
of its essential Quakerism, an equal share in the use of the Philadel¬ 
phia meeting-houses and burial grounds, a difficult situation arose. 
From 1781 to 1783 the Free Quakers made several applications 
to the legislature, asking it to intervene in the matter, and charging 
their old Society with treason. The Assembly was not unsympathetic, 
but the whole procedure of Friends in the disownments had been 
so regular that there was no pretext for intervention. The Meeting 
for Sufferings in February 1782 explained to the Assembly that 
the Society had “power to accept or reject particular members 
according to the suitableness or the unsuitableness of their conduct 
with its doctrines and rules . . . nor are any prohibited from 
assembling with us in our meetings for public worship which, it is 
well known, are held openly and free to all sober people.” Any 
member, on the other hand, was equally at liberty to leave them 
and join himself to any other people. Some of the disowned them¬ 
selves addressed the Assembly, explaining that they acquiesced in the 
justice of their disownments and wished for no interference with 
Friends. Nicholas Wain, formerly an acute lawyer, but by this time 
a pillar of the Society, did it good service before the Commission 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 


4 i 3 

of Inquiry. When some of the malcontents entered the room, he 
turned to one with the question : “ What wast thou disowned 

for ?” The ex-Friend, whose difference of opinion had arisen on 
the question of cock-fighting, hesitated and would not reply. The 
process was gone through in the case of one or two others disowned 
on similar grounds, and the Commissioners were able to infer that 
the petitioners had not all left the Society from motives of pure 
patriotism. 

Disappointed in this attempt, the Free Quakers raised funds 
to build a meeting-house, to which both Washington and Franklin 
subscribed. It is still standing at the corner of Fifth and Arch Streets, 
Philadelphia, with an inscription stating that it was built “ in the 
year of the Empire 8,” because, as one of its founders prophesied, 
“ our country is destined to be the great empire over all this world.” 
But gradually the first impulse died away ; some of the original 
members repented and again joined Friends, other died, others 
moved out of the city, and the meeting dwindled rapidly. After 
the death of Samuel Wetherhill, its Clerk, in 1816, it had little 
vitality. His grandson, John Price Wetherhill, “ after worshipping 
almost alone for several years, closed the Meeting.” The building 
was let on lease, and to this day the descendants of its founders meet 
once a year to apportion its revenue to religious and charitable uses. 

The Revolutionary War left a deep mark on American character 
and manners, and the Society of Friends could not go unchanged 
through the ordeal. A recent historian says that Philadelphia Yearly 
Meeting came out of the struggle “ more moral internally, more 
devoted to moral reforms, more conservative of ancient tradition, 
custom, and doctrine, more separate from the world, more introver- 
sive in spirit.” 1 The testimonies against war and slavery had gained 
in fearlessness and decision, and added to these was a new and growing 
interest in temperance and in the religious education of their children. 
On the other hand, the unpopularity of the Quaker position had 
thrown the body, as it were, back upon itself. For years after the 
war they had little intercourse with other denominations, and the 
unhappy divisions which occurred in the Society in America during 
the earlier nineteenth century may have been intensified by this 
exclusiveness. Yet the troubles of the period had left some gains 
behind. To quote again from the same writer : “ They undoubtedly 
felt that though they had suffered much in popular esteem they 
* Sharplcss in Quakers in American Colonies , p. 579. 


4 H 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


had steered through a very troubled sea of war and confusion on 
a straight line of principle. . . . The years following the war 
were the years of the greatest increase in the number of meetings, 
and probably of members, which had been seen in Pennsylvania 
since the early years of the settlement.” 1 

The Society never by word or deed repented of the course it had 
taken. In fact, even in their formal reconciliation with the new 
Government, the Friends re-asserted their position, and its chief 
magistrate, while regretting, accepted it. This apologia was made 
in 1789, when Washington was President. The Yearly Meeting, 
under Nicholas Wain as Clerk, presented him with an address of 
respectful congratulation on his election as President, expressing 
gratitude for the free toleration of religious opinion under the new 
Government, and adding, “ we feel our hearts affectionately drawn 
towards thee.” As for themselves, “ with a full persuasion that the 
divine principle we profess leads into harmony and concord, we 
can take no part in any warlike measures on any occasion or under 
any power, but we are bound in conscience to lead quiet and 
peaceable lives in godliness and honesty among men, contributing 
freely our proportion to the indigencies of the poor and to the neces¬ 
sary support of civil government.” Washington’s reply was one of 
courteous thanks for their good wishes. Liberty of conscience, he 
declared, he had always considered a right, not a privilege. “ Your 
principles and conducts are well known to me, and it is doing the 
people called Quakers no more than justice to say that (except their 
declining to share with others in the burdens of common defence) 
there is no denomination among us who are more exemplary and 
useful citizens. I assure you very especially that in my opinion 
the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great 
delicacy and tenderness ; and it is my wish and desire that the laws 
may always be extensively accommodated to them as a due regard 
to the protection and essential interest of the nation may justify.” 

Washington was not in the habit of using empty phrases, and 
the sincerity of this judgment is confirmed from another source. 
Brissot de Warville, later one of the most idealistic of the Girondins, 
spent the years 1783 to 1789 in America in the interests of “ Les 
Amis des Noirs,” the French opponents of the slave-trade. He was 
naturally thrown much among the Philadelphia Quakers, whose 
virtues and eccentricities he described in enthusiastic but slightly 
1 Quakers in the Revolution, pp. 203-4. 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 


4 i 5 


inaccurate detail. On one occasion Washington discussed the sect 
with him. He declared to me that, in the course of the war, he 
had entertained an ill opinion of this Society ; he knew but little 
of them, as at that time there were but few of that sect in Virginia, 
and he had attributed to their political sentiments the effect of their 
religious principles. He told me that having since known them 
better he acquired an esteem for them ; and that, considering the 
simplicity of their manners, the purity of their morals, their exemplary 
economy, and their attachment to the constitution, he considered 
this Society as one of the best supports of the new government.” 1 

A patriotism which satisfied Washington is not in urgent need 
of defence. 

1 Brissot de Warville, New Travels in America (English edition, 1794)^. 357. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE UNITED STATES 

The first half of the nineteenth century was a time of trial for 
American Friends. The separation between “Orthodox” and 
“Hicksite” Friends in 1827—8 was followed by minor secessions, 
and much of the energy of the Society was expended in discussions 
of theology and Church organization. In Ohio, the separation, which 
took place at the Yearly Meeting of 1828, was attended by scenes 
of disorder and even violence, due mainly to non-Friends partisans 
of the “ Hicksites ” (described by the Orthodox as “ a rude 
rabble ”) who forced their way into the meeting. 1 These separations 
not only split the Society into smaller and weaker bodies, but acted 
(in the strong words of a group of American Friends) as “a moral 
blight,” which made “ ineffective and apparently insincere our 
peace efforts. . . . If we would preach peace, harmony, and unity 
among the nations, we must be able to answer the query that love 
and unity are maintained among us. 2 

Another difficulty during the same period was the steady west¬ 
ward emigration of Friends from the east and south. Those from 
slave States especially were attracted to the new lands, and sometimes 
whole meetings migrated in a body. “ About two-thirds of all the 
Friends in the world are in the United States, west of the Alle- 
ghanies .”3 Friends had cleared themselves of the reproach of slave¬ 
holding and, though the official bodies continued to petition 
legislatures, and individuals did much for the slave, the political 
abolition movement was looked on at first with disfavour. Neverthe- 

1 For the history of these divisions vide Thomas, History of Friends in America , 
ch. v ; E. Grubb, Separations : Their Causes and Effects, 1914 ; Rufus Jones, Later 
Periods of Quakerism, chaps, xii and xiii. The names are given to the two bodies 
by popular usage, but are not adopted by them. 

* Conference of All Friends , 1920, Report of (American) Commission V. 30. 

3 Thomas, History of Friends in America , p. 195. 

416 


THE UNITED STATES 417 

less many Friends, among them Whittier, worked unceasingly and 
courageously in the cause. 1 

In another direction Friends maintained their old work. The 
burden of Indian welfare lay heavy on their hearts, and by negotia¬ 
tions in the cruel wars between Indian and white man, by settlements 
of Friends among the various tribes to give them religious teaching 
and to instruct them in farming and handicrafts, and by the founda¬ 
tion of schools they did what they could to reconcile the red man 
to the new civilization which was overwhelming him. Practically 
all the Yearly Meetings formed committees for this purpose. 
Gradually, as the control of Indian affairs passed into the hands 
of the Government, these Committees had often to approach the 
President and Executive on behalf of their clients, and eventually 
this intercourse led to a wider development of the Quaker work.* 

For many years there was comparatively little opportunity for 
Quaker testimony against war. Since 1784, in several States, Quakers 
had been specifically exempted from serving in the militia, but after 
the war of 1812, in Virginia at least, the old penalties of fine and 
imprisonment for not bearing arms were re-imposed. The Yearly 
Meeting of Virginia in 1816 sent up a protest to the State legislature, 
drawn up and signed by Benjamin Bates, clerk to the Meeting. 
He also sent a letter to Hay, a member of the legislature. Both these 
were reproduced in Niles' Register (a Baltimore weekly) in November 
1816, with the remark that they were a body of “ the ablest argu¬ 
ments that have ever appeared in defence of certain principles held 
by this people .”3 This particular law was amended, but heavy 
distraints are recorded by Virginia Friends in many subsequent 
years, until their union with Baltimore Yearly Meeting in 1844. 
In North Carolina a Militia law of 1830 tried to exact a fine from 
Quakers, in lieu of military service, the proceeds of which were 
to be used for education. The Friends objected that they were 
willing to be taxed for the State schools, but this was “ a groundless 
and oppressive demand. It is a muster tax in disguise and violates 

1 For details ’vide Rufus Jones, Later Periods, ch. xv. 

» A full account is found in Kelsey, Friends and the Indians (published by the 
Associated Executive Committee of Friends on Indian Affairs, Philadelphia, 
I 9 I 7 )* 

3 Vide Weeks, Southern Quakers, p. 196 ; Friends' Miscellany, vii. In the 
Memorial the Virginia Friends declare that they “ ask permission only to practise 
the doctrines of Jesus Christ.’* An Indiana Monthly Meeting memorialized the 
State Legislature in 1810, but Friends suffered from distraints during the war 
(R. Jones, Later Periods, p. 423). 


27 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


418 

the very principle which it seems to respect.” In 1832 the law 
was repealed, and as at this period several States abolished militia 
drills and practically disbanded the State militia, the position of 
Friends was distinctly eased. During Indian troubles in the years 
from 1810 to 1813 the Friend pioneers in Ohio and Indiana took 
strict measures against violations of the peace testimony. Many 
were disowned for training in the militia, paying fines, or providing 
substitutes. In Indiana a man was disowned who went into a fort 
for protection and, after 44 dealing,” was 44 not inclined to condemn 
his conduct.” 1 

The reaction from the war of 1812 and from the greater 
war in Europe, of which it was an offshoot, led, almost at the time 
when the English Peace Society was founded, to the independent 
formation of similar Societies in America. 2 But, as at all times of 
the Society’s history, the quiet personal testimony of individual 
Friends to their trust in the way of peace did most to convince the 
world of their sincerity. The Journal of Joseph Hoag, a Vermont 
Friend in 1812, contains an instance of such testimony which 
recalls the quaint simplicity of Chalkley, a hundred years earlier. 
There was war not only with the British, but with the Indians, 
and Hoag was travelling in Tennessee when the frontier of the State 
was enduring attack. At Knoxville the traveller, in his unmistakable 
Quaker garb, breakfasted in the public room of the hotel in company 
with a number of officers, among them a General. The story is told 
in his own words : 

44 The sergeants made their returns to the General, that they 
had warned every man that the law required to do military duty, 
Quakers and all, and there had not one Quaker appeared on the 
ground. In the meantime the General looked sharply at me, as 
I was walking the room, and said : 4 Well, we have lost a number 
of our frontier inhabitants, and some of our soldiers ; and a people 
who would not defend the frontier inhabitants when the savages 
were destroying and scalping them, could not be considered friends 
to their country, and should have no favour from him.’ He then 
said : 4 How do you like this doctrine, stranger ? ’ I answered, 

4 It is no doctrine for me ; I have little or no opinion of it.’ ” The 

1 Rufus Jones, Later Periods, pp. 423 foil., 721. 

3 Channing was a protagonist in the movement. The New York Peace 
Society and that of Ohio were founded in 1815, those of Massachusetts and 
Philadelphia in the following year. The American Peace Society was established 
in 1828. 


THE UNITED STJTES 4 i 9 

General, unused to such opposition, asked : ‘ Why ? ’ And Hoag 
explained that the Quaker position was taken up in obedience to 
the commands of Christ, to whom they owed supreme allegiance. 

“ The General sat down, but soon rose with these words : ‘ I 
am not going to give up the argument so ; I see by the look of 
your eye that you are no coward ; you are a soldier ; and if an 
Indian were to come into your house to kill your wife and children, 
you would fight.’ I answered : ‘ As for cowardice, I ever despised 
it,’ but, pointing toward the guns standing in the house, with 
bayonets on them, and looking him full in the face, added : ‘ General, 
it would take twelve such men as thou art—and then you would 
not do it—to make me take hold of a gun or pistol to take the life 
of a fellow creature.’ 

“ He turned and sat down, but not long, and said : ‘ I will bring 
you to the point. If an Indian were to come into your house, with 
his knife and tomahawk, and you knew he would kill you, your 
wife, and children, and you knew you could kill him and save all 
your lives, you would kill him ; if you did not, you would be guilty 
of the death of the whole.’ 

“ I thought it time to look for a close, and told him ... I should 
keep him to the Christian platform or creed laid down by Jesus 
Christ ; and that he would not deny that a Christian was fit to live 
or die. I then told him I would give the subject a fair statement, 
and he might judge. I proceeded thus : I shall state that myself 
and wife are true Christians and our children are in their minority 
—and thou knowest it is natural for children to believe what their 
parents teach them—and therefore we are all true Christians, as 
far as our several capacities enable us to be. And now the question 
lies here : ‘ Which is most like the precepts and example of our 
King—the Author of the Christian religion—to lay down our lives 
and all go to heaven together, or kill that Indian and send him into 
eternity , for he must be wicked to kill a family that would not hurt 
him ? General, it is a serious thing to take the lives of those who 
are not prepared to die ; they have no chance to come back and 
mend their ways, and thou dost not know but that if that Indian 
was spared, he might feel remorse enough to make him repent so 
as to find forgiveness. 1 . . . And that is not all, General : when 
I killed that Indian, I embrued my hands in human blood. . . . 
Canst thou make thyself believe that I stand as good a chance to get 
1 Cp. Chalkley’s argument, p. 321. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


420 

to heaven as to die when my hands were clean and I innocent 
of human blood ? And, General, we find Jesus Christ had one 
soldier among his followers, who drew his sword and fought like 
a valiant for his Lord. But what then said his Lord ? 44 Put up 

again thy sword into his place : for all they that take the sword 
shall perish with the sword.” General, thou wilt do well to remember 
that saying ; it is the word of a King.’ 

44 The General made no answer, but sat and hung his head for 
some time. One of the company at length replied : 4 Well, stranger, 
if all the world was of your mind, I would turn and follow after.’ 
I replied : ‘ So then thou hast a mind to be the last man in the world 
to be good. I have a mind to be one of the first, and set the rest 
the example.’ This made the General smile. . . . After a little 
discourse, the General said : ‘ Well, stranger, there are a great many 
of your sort of people in this State.’ I answered : ‘ Yes, and I hope 
thou finds them an honest, industrious, peaceable people ; good 
inhabitants to populate and clear up a new country and make it 
valuable.’ 

“ He said, 4 Yes, they are an industrious, harmless people.’ We 
were both on our feet 5 I turned and looked him full in the face, 
and spoke with some emphasis : 4 General, canst thou say then an 
honest, industrious people, who will harm nobody, are enemies 
to their country ? ’ 

44 He paused awhile and said : 4 No ; and they shall have my 
protection, and you have the word of a General for it.’ 

44 1 then felt easy that all was done that could be done. I had 
the same man’s word who had said : 4 No favour should be shown 
to the Quakers ’ now pledge his honour to protect them. 

44 After some more conversation we parted very pleasantly.” 

Hoag is remembered as the author of two remarkable predictions 
or visions of the Civil War. Of their authenticity there is no doubt, 
as they were both recorded years before their fulfilment. In 1820 
he was riding with a friend in Pennsylvania when he reined his 
horse and, looking at the ground, exclaimed : 44 My horse’s feet 
are wading in blood, even to the fetlocks.” They were riding across 
the ground on which his countrymen poured out their blood at 
Gettysburg, forty-three years later. The other vision, which came 
to him in 1803, 1 was more elaborate. He saw a spirit of separation 

* It was circulated in manuscript many years before it was first printed in 
1854, vide Friends' Intelligencer , 1915, p. 741. 


THE UNITED STATES 


421 

and schism disturbing all the Churches, including his own Society— 
as was actually the case in 1827. Next, the spirit “ entered politics 
throughout the United States, and produced a civil war, and an 
abundance of human blood was shed in the course of the combat. 
The Southern States lost their power, and slavery was annihilated 
from their borders.” So far the prediction was striking enough, 
but the conclusion of the vision, in which Hoag saw his country 
under the power of a monarch and an established church, still shows 
no signs of fulfilment. 

Another episode, which made some stir, was the election of 
a Quaker to the Major-Generalship of the Maine militia. Eli Jones 
was returned in 1854 to the Maine Assembly. The position was 
uncongenial, and though he fulfilled his duties faithfully, he never 
spoke in the House. His fellow legislators, who respected him 
as a man of character and ability, determined to force a speech from 
him. The Maine militia was a body which had been in existence 
some twenty years, but had never seen service—in fact, it was a 
standing joke in the State. When the office of Major-General fell 
vacant in 1855, it seemed that to elect a Quaker to the position 
would put a fresh edge on the jest. Whether Eli Jones accepted 
or declined nomination, he must speak, and a large audience of 
his fellow members and of the public assembled to hear him. But 
the Quaker was equal to the occasion. He opened in a strain of 
good-humoured banter, saying that his election was one of the 
phenomena of a phenomenal year. He continued, with an under¬ 
current of serious meaning : 

“ It is generally understood that I entertain peculiar views in 
respect of the policy of war. If, however, I am an exponent of the 
views of the legislature on that subject, I will cheerfully undertake 
to serve the State in the capacity indicated. I shall stand before the 
militia and give such orders as I think best. The first would be : 
‘ Ground arms.’ The second would be : ‘ Right about face ; 
beat your swords into ploughshares, and your spears into pruning 
hooks, and learn war no more.’ I should then dismiss every man 
to his farm and to his merchandise, with an admonition to read daily 
at his fireside the New Testament, and ponder upon its tidings 
of Peace on Earth, Good Will towards men.” But, he added, he 
felt that his election was in advance of the times. “ With pleasure 
I now surrender to the House this trust and the honour, and retire 
to private life.” 


422 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


The speech was reprinted widely in the American, and even 
in the English Press. Such incidents served to remind men that the 
Quaker still held his ancient faith, but for nearly half a century 
these convictions were untested. The Mexican War of 1846-8 
was fought by the regular army and by volunteers, and though 
Friends, in common with some of the United States’ best citizens, 
viewed it with abhorrence as a campaign of conquest against a weak 
and semi-civilized race, yet they could do nothing more than put 
their protest upon record. 1 

In the years 1855 and 1856 Friends joined with other opponents 
of slavery in the migrations to Kansas, which aimed at securing 
that great territory as a free State. These settlers were harassed 
and terrorized by raiders from the bordering slave States. One 
Friend (William H. Coffin) has left us a candid account of his weak¬ 
ness before the prospect of a murderous attack. “ My education 
was such I could not with conscience kill a man ; but when I got 
to reasoning with myself about my duty in the protection of my 
family, my faith gave way. I had an excellent double-barrelled 
gun, and I took it outdoors and loaded it heavily with buckshot. 
... I barred the door and set my gun handy, . . . but I could 
get no sleep. . . . Finally, towards midnight I got up, wife and 
children peacefully sleeping, drew the loads from my gun and put 
it away ; and then, on my knees, I told the Lord all about it and 
asked his protection, . . . went to bed, was soon asleep, and slept till 
sun-up next morning.” 2 The raiders, meanwhile, met with resistance 
elsewhere which diverted their route, and the house was not attacked. 

John Brown was one of the anti-slavery leaders in these Kansas 
struggles. He was on terms of friendship with some Kansas Quakers 
and others in Springfield, Iowa, and in the final scene at Harper’s 
Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, two Quaker brothers, Edwin and Barclay 
Coppoc, from Iowa, were members of his band. Edwin had already 
been disowned for warlike activities ; he was executed for his share 
in the expedition. Barclay was later disowned because “ he has 
neglected the attendance of our religious meetings and is in the 
practice of bearing arms.”3 

1 The view of the opponents of the war was put with incomparable wit and 
indignant force by Lowell in the Biglow Papers. The Philadelphia and New 
England Meetings for Sufferings both memorialized Congress against the war, 
and the Quaker journals expressed vigorous condemnation of it. 

2 Kansas Historical Collections, vii. 334-5, quoted in Later Periods of 

Quakerism , p. 848. 3 Later Periods of Quakerism, p. 852. 


THE UNITED STJTES 


423 

The Civil War shook the nation to its very foundations. Here 
we must only consider that great and bloody struggle—the most 
costly in men and money known to modern civilization until the 
recent European catastrophe—in its effect on the Society of Friends. 
The sufferings of Friends in the Confederate territory require separate 
notice. The pages immediately following only refer to the position 
of Quakers in the Northern States. 

What has been written of John Bright in an earlier chapter 
may be applied with little modification to the attitude of American 
Friends of all branches. They ardently desired the extinction of 
slavery, and on the constitutional question the majority also naturally 
upheld the North. But it must not be forgotten that for nearly 
two years the Northern Government did not declare openly for 
abolition, and many feared that even victory and the restoration of 
the Union would involve the maintenance of the “ peculiar institu¬ 
tion ” in the South. Whittier’s poems give expression to this fear. 
In one, A Word for the Hour , he uttered the feeling of many Friends 
that a fratricidal war was too great a price to pay for re-union, and 
that it were better to leave the slave States to struggle with their own 
burden. 

They break the links of Union : shall we light 
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain 
On that red anvil where each blow is pain ? 

Draw we not even now a freer breath 
As from our shoulders falls a load of death. 

Why take we up the accursed thing again ? 

When the issue was definitely taken, Whittier, with other 
Friends, rejoiced that even by such means freedom came, and their 
long prayers were granted. 

Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer. 

The message of deliverance comes. 

But heralded by roll of drums 
On waves of battle-troubled air. 

Not as we hoped ;—but what are we ? 

Above our broken dreams and plans 
God lays, with wiser hand than man’s, 

The comer-stone of liberty . 1 


1 Astraa at the CapitoL 


424 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


So, too, in the exultant Laus Deo ! and The Peace Autumn 
he hailed the work of those “ who died to make the slave a man.” 
It was this hereditary passion for freedom, added to the natural 
forces of patriotism and public opinion, which produced once more 
groups of “ Fighting Quakers.” A considerable number of young 
Friends joined the Northern army, and some of their elders were 
concerned with military supplies and other war activities. A 
“Hicksite” Friend, James Sloan Gibbons, wrote one of the war- 
songs of the North : “We are coming, Father Abraham,” and the 
15th Pennsylvania Regiment, led by a “ Hicksite” Friend, Colonel 
Palmer, was known as the “ Quaker ” regiment, since most of the 
officers and a proportion of the privates belonged to their leader’s 
sect. In the North-West and Middle-West the Quaker meetings 
were largely made up of emigrants from the Slave States and their 
children. It was from those newly settled meetings that the largest 
proportion enlisted during the war. Of the actual numbers through¬ 
out all the Yearly Meetings there is no quite certain estimate. It 
was said of the Quakers of Indiana, that in proportion to their numbers 
they had more soldiers in the war for the Union than any other 
religious denomination. Yet, in fact, at Indiana Yearly Meeting 
of 1862, five Monthly Meetings reported that a hundred of their 
members had volunteered, and the remaining ten meetings had 
“a considerable number” serving. If this number even reached 
two hundred, the total would only be three hundred soldiers out 
of a membership of twenty thousand.* In other Yearly Meetings 
the records show much fewer instances, “very few volunteers 
appearing in rural sections, and more in city meetings.” 3 For 

* The remark was made by Senator G. W. Julian, of Indiana, in 1895 (Weekes, 
Southern Quakers, jp. 306). Recently it has been reasserted as if applying to all 
Friends in America. Dr. Rufus Jones comments : “ There is no historical 
evidence whatever to justify such a statement. The ‘ deviations * from the 
historical, testimony were more numerous than one would have expected in a 
conservative body which made the testimony an absolutely essential feature of its 
faith. But even so . . . the total number appears small” ( Later Periods of 
Quakerism , pp. 736-7). 

* Rufus Jones, Later Periods of Quakerism , p. 729, also pp. 737—9 (a careful 
study of the replies of Monthly Meetings during the war to the Yearly Meeting 
query about compliance with military requisitions). A good deal of information 
about “ Hicksite ” Friends in the Civil War may be found in the Friends' 
Intelligencer since 1909, in articles and notes by Thaddeus Kenderdine and George 
D. John, both army veterans {vide, especially, Intelligencer , 1911, pp. 394, 446 ; 
I 9 I 3 > P* 439 )* Cartland, Southern Heroes, p. 129, remarks that “ H. W. 
Halleck, at one time General-in-Chief of the Armies, remained a member of the 


THE UNITED STJTES 425 

example. New York City Monthly Meeting reported eleven 
volunteers in 1863, but two rural Monthly Meetings in the State, 
only two and three, respectively. One young Quaker officer, who 
lost his life near Washington, was James Parnell Jones, the son 
of Eli Jones, the peace advocate. In spite of such instances, however, 
two modern historians of American Quakerism, well qualified to 
give a verdict, have written 1 : 

“ Much has been said about the number of Friends in the army, 
but more than the occasion warrants. The peculiar custom which 
grew up of admitting the children of Friends as full members by 
right of birth, with all its undeniable advantages, had this drawback, 
that many who had never made any Christian profession were counted 
as Friends, and when these enlisted it was considered that they had 
forsaken their position, when in reality many of them had nothing 
but a traditional position on the subject. In many cases those who 
enlisted were disowned by their meetings, in many others their 
acknowledgment of regret was accepted, and in others no action 
was taken. On the other hand there were numerous instances of 
persons who were faithful to their testimony for peace amid much 
that was painful.” The general impression of all who have inquired 
into the question of disownment for war activities is that, in the 
East the “ Hicksite ” Friends were on the whole lenient and the 
“ Orthodox” stringent. At Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) 
in 1911 twenty veterans were present. In the West there was very 
little disownment by either body. 2 

meeting at Newport, Rhode Island, during the war, by an oversight caused by 
his removal to the West.’* If this was so the oversight must have been one of long 
standing, for Halleck had graduated from West Point in 1839, and had served with 
distinction in the army for many years. But the story was not accepted by Allen 
C. Thomas. “ I feel sure it is an error,” he wrote (October 1916) to Norman 
Penney, then Librarian of the Friends’ Reference Library, Devonshire House, 
London. 

1 A. C. and R. H. Thomas, History of Friends in America , p. 177. 

a As in England, the fact that disownment was by the Monthly Meetings, 
makes it almost impossible to collect full data. For confirmation of the foregoing 
statements, <vide Friends' Intelligencer , 1911, p. 394 (T. Kenderdine). R. Jones, 
Later Periods of Quakerism , p. 730, says, more particularly of the Orthodox 
branch, that those who volunteered or paid commutation money under the draft 
were usually disowned “ though meetings were generally lenient where the 
individual expressed regret for his course and desired to be reinstated.” All 
Friends' Peace Conference , Report of Commission I (American), 1920, p 40, gives 
an instance of disownment in 1866 by New York City Monthly Meeting of 
a Friend volunteer “ who had no regrets . . . feeling he had only done his 
duty.” 


426 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


Some of these young volunteers who remained in the Society 
were afterwards strong peace advocates. Like many others in the 
Civil War, they were of the type of citizen-soldier described by 
Whittier in his Lexington 1 : 

Their feet had trodden peaceful ways. 

They loved not strife, they dreaded pain; 

They saw not, what to us is plain. 

That God would make man’s wrath His praise. 


They went where duty seemed to call. 

They scarcely asked the reason why; 

They only knew they could but die. 

And death was not the worst of all! 

There is no doubt that a majority of Friends, and a large majority 
of those in active membership, maintained a firm stand. There is 
no ambiguity in the utterances of the Yearly Meetings or of 
the representative bodies (Meetings for Sufferings) or in the 
editorials of the Quaker journals during the years of the war. 2 
The Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings in January 1862 published 
a lengthy paper repeating many of the Society’s ancient “ Advices ” 
against war, and reminding Friends that “ whatever peculiar circum¬ 
stances attach to the war which is now waging in our land . . , the 
testimony of our religious Society has ever been against all wars 
and fightings without distinction,” as being incompatible with 
Christianity. So New York Meeting for Sufferings declared : 
“ The foundation of our well-known testimony against war rests 

1 Lexington was Whittier’s contribution to the Centennial Celebrations of 
American Independence. He refused to write on Bunker’s Hill, saying: “ I 
stretched my Quakerism to the full extent of its drab in writing about the Lexington 
folk who were shot and did not shoot back. I cannot say anything about those 
who did shoot to some purpose on Bunker’s Hill.” Whittier’s hatred of war was 
as deep as his enthusiasm for the heroic as revealed in war or peace. “ I thank God,” 
he wrote as a young man in 1833, “ that he has given me a deep and invincible 
horror of human butchery,” and years later: “ It is only . . . when Truth and 
Freedom, in their mistaken zeal, and distrustful of their own powers, put on 
battle-harness, that I can feel any sympathy with merely physical daring.” Vide 

Whittier s Attitude towards War,” by A. T. Murray in Present Day Papers 
July 1915. r ’ 

2 These journals were The Friend (Philadelphia) and the Friends' Review 
(both “Orthodox”), and the Friends' Intelligencer (“ Hicksite ”). The Friend 
in 1863 exhorted the young Quakers “ to confess Christ before men, saying in 
both language and conduct, as did the primitive believers: ‘ We are Christians, 
and therefore cannot fight.’ ” 


THE UNITED STJTES 427 

upon the plain, undeniable injunctions and precepts of our Saviour, 
as well as the entire Spirit of the Gospel.” 1 

As soon as the evil fell upon them, Friends showed a loyal 
desire to serve the country and to relieve the sufferings of war. In 
June 1861 Whittier, who held a peculiar position of influence and 
esteem among them, issued a circular letter “ To members of the 
Society of Friends,” in which he sounded a clear call of duty. “ We 
have no right,” he said, “ to ask or expect an exemption from the 
chastisement which the Divine Providence is inflicting upon the 
nation. Steadily and faithfully maintaining our testimony against 
war, we owe it to the cause of truth to show that exalted heroism 
and generous self-sacrifice are not incompatible with our pacific 
principles. Our mission is, at this time, to mitigate the sufferings 
of our countrymen, to visit and aid the sick and wounded, to relieve 
the necessities of the widow and the orphan, and to practise economy 
for the sake of charity. . . . Our Society is rich, and of those to 
whom much is given, much will be required in this hour of proving 
and trial .”3 He repeated the appeal two years later in his fine “Anni¬ 
versary Poem,” written when conscription was pressing on the 
country. 

Many Quakers, both men and women, helped in the hospitals, 
and even in the medical service of the battlefields, but the work 
they made peculiarly their own was the care of the freedmen and 
coloured refugees. Thousands of these had been taken prisoners 
by the Northern armies, and by a kindly legal fiction ser into free 
territory as “ contraband of war,” since they had bee * employed 
by the Confederates on military works. They were temporarily 
settled in large camps, where Friends found a wide field of helpful¬ 
ness in providing clothing, medical aid, and organizing employment 
and instruction. 

In the dark days of December 1861, when it seemed as if England 
and America must be drawn into war, members of the Society put 
all their influence on the side of peace. The London Meeting for 
Sufferings forwarded a copy of its address to the British Govern¬ 
ment to the representative body of Baltimore Yearly Meeting for 
presentation to Lincoln. Francis T. King, one of the deputation, 
related afterwards that in the course of the interview the name of John 
Bright was mentioned. 

1 New York Meeting for Sufferings (Orthodox), 1861, quoted All Friends ’ 
Conference , Report of (American) Commission I, p. 24. 

2 Pickard, Life of Whittier , ii. 441. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


428 

“ The President’s countenance lighted up . . . and he said : 
4 Sherman, did you know that John Bright was a Quaker ? ’ 
4 Oh, yes ! ’ 4 Well, I did not before. I read all his speeches, and 
he knows more of American politics than most of the men at the 
other end of the avenue (pointing to the Capitol). I appreciate 
his great work for us in our struggle at home.’ Turning again 
to us, he said : 4 Give me your address and I will send you an 
acknowledgment of the appeal. These are the first words of cheer 
and encouragement we have had from across the water.’ ” 1 In a 
private letter Lincoln wrote : 44 Engaged as I am in a great war, 
I fear it will be difficult for the world to understand how fully I 
appreciate the principles of peace inculcated in this letter and 
everywhere by the Society of Friends.” 3 Indeed, in all his inter¬ 
course with them, Lincoln showed himself sincere and sympathetic. 
It is said that he never refused to receive their frequent deputations, 
saying : “ I know they are not seeking office.” He was himself of 
Quaker descent, and the mother of his War Secretary, Stanton, 
was an Ohio Friend. On this account, and from their leniency 
towards the conscientious scruples of Friends, they were dubbed 
by their enemies 44 The Quaker War Cabinet.” 

On more than one occasion Lincoln admitted, and indeed 
welcomed, a “ religious visit ” of prayer and exhortation from earnest 
Friends. One, from Eliza Gurney, widow of the English Friend 
Joseph John Gurney, left a deep impression on his mind. A letter 
which she afterwards wrote to him was found in his breast-pocket 
when he w is assassinated nearly two years later. His reply to this 
letter (dated September 4, 1864) throws light on his own deepest 
convictions, and shows his respect for principles sincerely held. 

My esteemed Friend, 

I have not forgotten—probably never shall forget—the very impres¬ 
sive occasion when yourself and Friends visited me on a Sabbath afternoon 
two years ago. Nor has your kind letter, written nearly a year later, ever 
been forgotten. In all it has been your purpose to strengthen my reliance 
upon God. I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the 
country for their constant prayers and consolations, and to no one of them 
more than yourself. 

The purposes of the Almighty are perfect and must prevail, though 
we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We 

1 Account quoted in Cartland, Southern Heroes , pp. 6-9. 

* Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln , vi. 328. Letter to S. B. Tobey, 
March 19, 1862. 


THE UNITED STATES 429 

hoped for a happy termination to this terrible war long before this, but 
God knows best and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His 
wisdom and our own error therein, and in the meantime we must work 
earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces 
to the great ends He ordains. Surely He intends some good to follow 
this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make and no mortal could 
stay. 

Your people, the Friends, have had and are having a very great trial. 
On principle and faith, opposed to both war and oppression, they can only 
practically oppose oppression by war. In this dilemma some have chosen 
one horn of the dilemma and some the other. For those appealing to me 
on conscientious grounds I have done, and shall do, what I could and can 
in my own conscience under my oath to the law. That you believe this 
I doubt not, and believing it, I shall still receive for our country and myself 
your earnest prayers to our Father in Heaven. 

Your sincere friend, 

A. Lincoln . 1 

In her answer Eliza Gurney refused to admit that true Friends 
could choose the second horn of the dilemma. “The Saviour,” 
she wrote, “ has commanded them to love their enemies ; therefore 
they dare not fight them. The only victory which they as followers 
of the Prince of Peace can with consistency rejoice in is that which 
is obtained through the transforming power of the grace of God.” 
Nevertheless, she added: “ I think I may venture to say that Friends 
are not the less loyal for the leniency with which their honest 
convictions are treated, and I believe there are very few among us 
who would not lament to see any other than Abraham Lincoln fill 
the Presidential Chair, at least at the next election.” 

Elizabeth Comstock, an English Friend settled in the States, 
devoted herself to working among the negroes, the wounded of both 
armies, and soldiers in army prisons. On one occasion some army 
chaplains wished to prevent her work. She appealed direct to Lincoln, 
and at once received the following order : “ Give Mrs. Comstock 
access to all hospitals, and to all inmates with whom she desires to 
hold religious services.” 

All Lincoln’s good-will, however, could not entirely relieve 
Friends from the pressure of the “draft” or conscription. They 
were, indeed, at first exempted on payment of three hundred dollars, 
but Congress, on the ground of fairness to others, would not continue 
this as the need for men increased, nor was the payment officially 

1 The letter is given in facsimile in Memoir and Correspondence of E. P. Gurney , 
p. 318. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


430 

sanctioned by Friends. The Draft Act of March 1863 was enforced 
by Federal officials, and made all citizens between the ages of twenty 
and forty-five liable to service. The various bodies of Friends at 
once stated their position, and individual Friends, when drafted, 
claimed exemption. Baltimore Meeting for Sufferings took the 
lead on behalf of the “Orthodox” Friends (except those of Phila¬ 
delphia Yearly Meeting, which conducted its own negotiations). 
In February 1863 it presented a brief but emphatic memorial to 
Congress, stating the reasons why they would neither serve nor 
voluntarily pay for exemption. Friends, no doubt, were indirectly 
protected by the general and extreme unpopularity of the drafts 
which led to bloody riots in New York and serious trouble in other 
districts. Lincoln was compelled to give orders that in these areas 
the draft should not be enforced, and thus, as the law was in any case 
laxly administered, the leniency shown to Friends was less noticed. 
Concurrently with the draft, recruiting with high bounties to 
volunteers was carried on so actively that some States were able 
to make up their quotas from this source. Yet, even under a lenient 
Government, some Friends came into the hands of the military. 
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 1864 reported that some 
Friends in the past year had been arrested and imprisoned for several 
weeks, but eventually released on parole. Another was sent to the 
Army and roughly handled. Application, however, had been made 
to the Secretary for War, whereupon he was at once discharged 
and the officer responsible for his treatment punished. * 

Perhaps the hardest experiences were those of five young New 
Englanders, Edward Holway and Charles Austin of Massachusetts, 
and Peter Dakin, Linley Macombe, and Cyrus Pringle of Vermont. 
The last-named kept a simple and singularly unimpassioned journal 
of his experiences. 2 

The three Vermont youths were drafted for service in July 
1863. Peter Dakin was supported in his stand for peace by a strong 
minute from his Monthly Meeting : “ This has been the belief of our 


1 Extracts from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Minutes , 1864, p. 4. 

1 The United States versus Pringle, The Record of a Quaker Conscience ” 
{The Atlantic Monthly, February 1913). The names of the other conscripts 
are given in th e Friend (Philadelphia), 1864, p. 21. This diary has been reprinted 
in book form, The Record of a Quaker Conscience , with Introduction by Rufus M 
Jones. (The Macmillan Co., 1918.) Pringle had joined Friends in ,86a, and 
apparently left them in later life. He died in ,91,, after a career of some dis¬ 
tinction as a botanist, vide also Ethan Foster, Conscript Quakers, 1883 


THE UNITED STJTES 431 

Society, and for its consistent maintenance for over two hundred 
years our members have been sufferers in different parts of the world.” 1 
Pringle’s uncle was willing to pay for a substitute, but the young 
Quaker steadily refused. They were given a month’s leave. 
“ All these days we were urged by our acquaintances to pay our 
commutation money ; by some through well-meant kindness and 
sympathy ; by others through interest in the war ; by others still 
through a belief they entertained it was our duty.” The parole 
expired on August 24, when, with other conscripts, they were 
taken to the guardroom at Brattleboro’ Camp. The night before 
young Pringle wrote a simple expression of his faith : 

I go to-morrow where the din 
Of war is in the sulphurous air. 

I go the Prince of Peace to serve, 

His cross of suffering to bear. 

After three days of confinement with fellow conscripts of a 
very different type they were transferred to Camp Vermont, Boston 
Harbour. On the journey they were marched under guard through 
Boston, two of the Quakers “ like convicts (and feeling very much 
like such) ” leading the company. In the camp they were not ill- 
treated, but their steady refusal to carry out military orders caused 
the officers much perplexity. The Major transferred them to the 
hospital tents, but they were no more willing to work there. Mean¬ 
while their friends had been interceding for them, but could only 
report on September 13th that “ the President, though sympathizing 
with those in our situation, felt bound by the Conscription Act, 
and felt liberty in view of his oath to execute the laws to do no more 
than detail us from active service to hospital duty or to the charge 
of the coloured refugees.” The young Friends were unwilling to 
accept the concession, as such work was still under military control. 
This naturally hardened the authorities against them. They were 
transferred from one camp to another. At Culpepper the Colonel, 
who was unwilling to treat them harshly, urged them to work in the 
hospital tents. The boys were shaken and perplexed by his arguments ; 
Cyrus Pringle’s own words are a typical expression of the mind of 
those who conscientiously object to any service under military control, 
and who thus present a Government with a problem not easy to solve. 
“ Regarding the work as one of mercy and benevolence, we asked 


* Rufus Jones, Later Periods of Quakerism , p. 734. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


432 

if we had any right to refuse its performance : and questioned whether 
we could do more good by endeavouring to bear to the end a clear 
testimony against war, than by labouring by word and deed among 
the needy in the hospitals and camps. We saw around us a rich 
field of usefulness in which there were scarce any labourers and 
towards whose work our hands had often started involuntarily and 
unbidden. At last we consented to a trial.” 

But after an honest attempt, the three Friends found the position 
impossible. Pringle writes, with unwonted strength of language, 
that they were “ days of going down into sin.” “ I have received 
a new proof, . . . that no Friend who is really such, desiring to 
keep himself clear of all complicity with this system of war, and 
to bear a perfect testimony against it, can lawfully perform service 
in the hospitals of the army in lieu of bearing arms.” 

After their refusal to continue the hospital duty the Colonel 
said he would make no more effort to relieve them, adding that 
“ a man who would not fight for his country did not deserve to live.” 
Next day the lieutenant in charge ordered Pringle to clean a gun. 

“ I replied to him that I could not comply with military requisi¬ 
tions, and felt resigned to the consequences. ‘ I do not ask about 
your feelings ; I want to know if you are going to clean that gun.’ 

* I cannot do it,’ was my answer. He went away, saying : * Very 
well,’ and I crawled into the tent again. Two sergeants soon called 
for me and, taking me a little aside, bid me lie down on my back, 
and stretching my limbs apart tied cords to my wrists and ankles, 
and to these four stakes driven into the ground, somewhat in the 
form of an X. 

“ I was very quiet in my mind as I lay there on the ground 
[soaked] with the rain of the previous day, exposed to the heat of the 
sun ? and suffering cruelly from the cords binding my wrists and 
straining my muscles. And, if I dared the presumption, I should 
say that I caught a glimpse of heavenly pity. I wept, not so much 
from my own suffering, as from sorrow that such things should be 
in our own country, where Justice and Freedom and Liberty of 
Conscience have been the annual boast of Fourth-of-July orators 
so many years. It seemed that our forefathers in the faith had wrought 
and suffered in vain, when the privileges they so dearly bought were 
so soon set aside. And I was sad, that one endeavouring to follow 
our dear Master should be so generally regarded as a despicable and 
stubborn culprit.” 


THE UNITED STJTES 


433 

After an hour of endurance, he was again asked to clean the 
gun and, again refusing, was left for a second hour, and then 
released. The sergeants threatened him with worse in the future. 
At this point, however, the situation changed. The three Friends, 
on October 6th, were summoned to report to Washington, where 
Isaac Newton, a Friend and an official in the department of Agricul¬ 
ture, had undertaken their case. He told them that both Lincoln 
and Stanton were anxious to prevent any further suffering. “ There 
appeared one door of relief open—that was to parole us and allow 
us to go home, but subject to their call again ostensibly, though this 
they neither wished nor proposed to do.” Until this could be arranged 
they were assigned to duty in a hospital, where the nursing staff 
were civilians and there was no question of releasing others for the 
fighting line. “It was hoped and expressly requested that we would 
consent to remain quiet and acquiesce if possible, in whatever might 
be required of us. . . . These requirements being so much less 
objectionable than we feared, we felt relief and consented to them.” 
Surely never before did the leaders of a nation make such humble 
entreaty to recalcitrant citizens. But even in hospital the situation 
was not easy. At last Isaac Newton was able to bring their case 
directly before the President, 1 who immediately said : “ I want 
you to go and tell Stanton that it is my wish all these young men 
be sent home at once.” Newton hurried to the War Office and, 
while he was urging Stanton, the President entered. “ It is my 
urgent wish,” he said. The Secretary yielded and the paroles were 
given on November 7th. It was none too soon for Pringle, who 
was seriously ill. Another Friend, Henry D. Swift, of Massachusetts, 
refused service, except in the camp hospital. “ Finally he was . . . 
made to witness the execution of a man, threatened with death 
himself, tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot.” Here, 
too, Lincoln intervened, and he was sent home on parole. 2 

These experiences roused Friends to take further action. On 

1 There was a slight delay due to an episode in which Lincoln played a 
characteristic part. One day when Newton had an appointment with him, he 
found a distracted woman trying to gain admittance. Her son, a boy of fifteen, 
had been enticed into the army, had deserted, and was to be shot next day. She 
had been told it was impossible to see the President, but Newton, postponing 
the claims of Pringle and the rest, carried her story to him. “ That must 
not be,” cried Lincoln, “ I must look into that case before they shoot that boy,” 
and he telegraphed to suspend the sentence. 

2 Rufus Jones, Later Periods, p. 735 - 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


434 

November 21, 1863, the Baltimore Committee reported to the 
Meeting for Sufferings their interview with Stanton, the Secretary 
for War. 1 This interview and the negotiations which followed 
threw into clear light the difficulties of an acceptable compromise 
even between Friends sincerely anxious to support the Government 
and a Government sincerely anxious to meet the case of Friends 
and other conscientious objectors. Stanton described “ with much 
feeling and stress the embarrassment which our position caused 
the Government and our own Society, as well as himself personally, 
in his efforts to grant us exemption unconditionally, for which he 
had no law.” He suggested a general conference by Friends to 
consider his proposal for their relief. This was to create a special 
fund for the benefit of the freedmen and to exempt Friends from 
military service upon the payment of $300 into this fund. The 
payment was not to be made, like ordinary military fines, to the local 
military authority, but direct to Washington, and he suggested 
that Friends should undertake the management and expenditure 
of the fund. The committee agreed to call the conference. It 
assembled at Baltimore on December 7, 1863, and consisted of 
representatives from the Meetings for Sufferings of six “ Orthodox ” 
Yearly Meetings (New England, New York, Baltimore, Ohio, 
Indiana, and Western). Iowa was unable to send delegates, and 
Philadelphia conducted its negotiations independently. The conference 
adopted the following minute as a clear statement of principle : 
“ As faithful representatives of those who have appointed us, we 
believe it right for us first to record our united sense and judgment 
that Friends continue to be solemnly bound unswervingly to main¬ 
tain our ancient faith and belief, that war is forbidden in the Gospel, 
and that as followers of the Prince of Peace we cannot contribute 
to its support or in any way participate in its spirit. That to render 
our service as an equivalent or in lieu of the requisition for military 
purposes is a compromise of a vital principle which we feel conscien¬ 
tiously bound to support under all circumstances, and notwithstanding 
any trials to which we may be subjected. . . . We gratefully 
appreciate the kindness evinced at all times by the President and 
Secretary for War, when we have applied to them for relief from 
suffering for conscience’ sake, and honour them for their charity and 

x The Reports (from the records of Baltimore Meeting for Sufferings) were 
printed in the Bulletin of the Friends’ Historical Society (Philadelphia), March 1911, 
pp. 15 foil. 


THE UNITED STJTES 435 

manifested regard for religious liberty. We have ever believed, and 
do without any reservation believe, in the necessity of civil govern¬ 
ment ; that it is a divine ordinance and that it is our duty to sustain 
it by all the influence we may exert, both by word and deed, subject 
to the paramount law of Christ ; and in this day of fearful strife, 
when so many of our fellow citizens are brought into suffering, 
we have no desire to shrink from the discharge of all our duty, nor 
from contributing to the relief of distress by every means in our 
power. ... In special manner Friends have long believed it their 
duty to labour for the relief and freedom of the bondman. . . . 
In this way, and by many other means, Friends can discharge the 
duties of good citizenship without infringing upon our principles 
of peace.” A small deputation was sent to Washington to interview 
Secretary Stanton. These Friends explained to him the opposition 
of the Society to any form of money commutation in lieu of military 
service, and added that, while its members were already working 
for the freemen and the wounded, they “ did these things as a matter 
of Christian duty, and should do them whether relieved from military 
service or not.” They added an expression of gratitude for the 
Secretary’s own exertions in the matter. To this Stanton replied, 
in very plain terms : 

“ That he stood only as an officer to execute the laws and had 
nothing to do with making them ; that if their liberality released 
them from the drafts, the same cause would release nearly everyone, 
and no soldiers could be found ; that all sects and denominations, 
and people of every class, had shown an extended liberality, and if 
Friends had done more than others, it was because they were better 
able to do it. But he had great respect for their conscientious scruples, 
and should be very sorry to oppress them.” He then repeated the 
proposal he had already made that Friends on stating to the military 
authorities their conscientious objections to military service should 
be released on payment of $300 for the freedmen’s fund. “ In 
this war there were two duties to perform by the Government, 
one to destroy the rebellion and the other to feed the hungry and 
clothe the naked freedmen. That last being a work of mercy and not 
of destruction might be done by Friends.” The deputation told 
him that such a payment would be considered as infringing on the 
rights of conscience. To this he replied : “ He could understand 
no such abstraction as that—that it was a work of mercy, and in 
accordance with the commands of Christ, and if our members did 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


43 6 

not choose to accept so liberal an offer, he could do no more for them, 
the law would have to take its effect. ... If any meeting or body 
of Friends chose to place funds in his hands in advance, to a greater 
amount than would be requisite to cover all their members who would 
be likely to be drafted, he would receive their funds and release all 
such as should be drafted, and apply the funds as previously proposed. 
Any meeting or individual Friend might avail themselves of it.” 
The deputation reported to the conference that the Secretary, while 
showing great courtesy and kindness, also spoke with much firmness. 
The conference did not come to any decision beyond assuring young 
Friends of their sympathy and urging them not to act hastily. 

On the last day of the year the Meetings for Sufferings of 
Baltimore, New York, New England, and Ohio memorialized 
Congress on the Enrolment Bill, then under consideration, asking 
for complete exemption. Copies of the memorials were presented 
to every member and read both in the Senate and the House of 
Representatives. They were referred in each House to its Committee 
on Military Affairs, with which the four Quaker deputations held 
long interviews. “ Deep interest was manifested by these Committees 
on our views upon war, and in the arguments and appeals for liberty 
^jof conscience and unconditional exemption from military service 
which were presented to them.” Congress, in the hope of meeting 
their scruples, adopted a clause classing “ members of religious 
denominations, who shall, by oath or affirmation, declare that they 
are conscientiously opposed to the bearing of arms, and who are 
prohibited from doing so by the rules and articles of faith and practice 
of such religious denominations,” 1 as non-combatants, assigning 
them to hospitals or freedmen’s service, or exempting them upon 
the payment of $300 into a fund for the relief of the sick and 
wounded. The clause met with some vicissitudes in committee, 
but was finally adopted. “We feel satisfied,” reported the Baltimore 
deputation, “ that a majority of both Houses would have granted 
Friends unconditional exemption from military service, had they 
not believed it would embarrass the Government, when the draft 
was seriously resisted in several parts of the country.” 

The question of exemption and alternative service was fully 
debated in the Meetings and in the Quaker journals. 2 Though 

1 The text is quoted in The Friend (Philadelphia) 1864, p. 86. 

1 E.g. Friend (Philadelphia) 1864, pp. 86 foil. ; Friends* Re<view t October 
1864, and Friends' Intelligencer , xxi. 456. 


THE UNITED STATES 437 

opinion was divided there was a strong body in favour of this service, 
and many accepted it—or, indeed, continued the work they had 
voluntarily assumed. Some paid the commutation, or, in the case 
of poorer Friends, it was paid for them by sympathizers, but this 
way of escape, at all events in the East, was not approved. Philadel¬ 
phia Yearly Meeting in 1866 reported that during the last year of 
the war one hundred and fifty of its members had been drafted, 
of whom thirty were physically unfit and were dismissed on those 
grounds, and twenty-four, who had paid the commutation, had 
“ made acknowledgment of error.” The remainder had been paroled, 
for, as has been seen, Lincoln had found a solution of the problem 
of the extremists by paroling them “ until called for.” 1 Thus he 
went to the extreme limit of the law in aid of Friends, and in return 
Friends were profoundly grateful to him. They were among the 
sincerest mourners for his irreparable loss. 

Thus in the North, Friends had passed through the national 
crisis, helped by the Government’s recognition of their sincerity and 
by its genuine reluctance to enter upon any course of persecution. 
The words in which the Hicksite Quakers of Philadelphia Yearly 
Meeting described the past history of Friends, may be borrowed 
to summarize their attitude in these years. “ Notwithstanding,” 
they said, “ there have been numerous cases of individual unfaithful¬ 
ness, as a body they have maintained a uniform testimony against 
war.” 3 The popular opinion of the Quaker as a man of peace was 
still held by their fellow citizens. 

In the Confederate States their lot was far harder, and in many 
cases scruples of conscience were met with brutal maltreatment 
and persecution .3 There was more than one reason for the difference 
in the attitude of the Federal and Confederate Governments. In 
the first place the South, hampered by its large negro population, 
was in desperate need of men. Its first Conscription Act of 1862 
involved every man between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. 
New Acts in swift succession extended either limit until before the 

* Triend (Philadelphia), 1864, p. 124 $ 1866, p. 288. Cartland, Southern 
Heroes , p. 136. 

* Friends' Intelligencer , xx., “ Memorial to Pennsylvania Government.” 

3 Southern Heroes , by F. G. Cartland, 1895, gives a full history of Southern 
Friends during the Civil War, and has been largely used in the following pages. 
Of earlier date is the Account of the Sufferings of Friends of North Carolina Yearly 
Meeting (Philadelphia), 1868 $ also Friends' Quarterly Examiner , 1869, p. 29 ; 
and Memoirs of Stanley Pumphrey. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


43 8 

end of the war all male citizens from sixteen to sixty were serving, 
and younger boys and older men were at times called upon for home 
defence. When the net was spread so wide there was little hope 
of escape, and the Friends were unlikely to meet with especial 
leniency, for they had long been identified by Southern politicians 
with the hated abolitionists. Many were known to have left the 
South for the West in order to escape from the slave atmosphere, 
and the small groups who remained were all classed as sympathizers 
with the Union and potential traitors. In fact, the majority of the 
population of North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, including 
the Quakers, voted against secession, but these districts were forced 
out of the Union by the pressure of their political leaders and the 
action of their neighbours, South Carolina and Virginia. Virginian 
Friends were few in number and lived in the northern part of the 
State, which became one of the chief battle-grounds of the war. 
They suffered almost equally from requisitions by the Confederate 
troops and destructive raids by Sheridan’s forces, as also from the 
suspicions and inquisitorial visits of Confederate officials. At the 
opening of the war Friends were, indeed, able to gain some conces¬ 
sions from the Confederate Congress. But Jefferson Davis was 
not Lincoln, and his subordinates were left unchecked to pursue 
their own devices. How fiendish these devices could be is shown 
both in the narratives of these Quaker conscripts and in the horrible 
story of the prison camps at Andersonville and Salisbury, which 
have left an indelible stain on the honour and humanity of the 
Southern Government. The explanation, though not the excuse, 
of these cruelties lay partly in the fact that most men of character 
and courage were at the fighting line, and those left at the base camps 
included the worst elements of the Confederate army. 

In December 1861 the Legislature of North Carolina considered 
a proposal by which all male inhabitants were required publicly 
to “ renounce all allegiance to the Government of the United States, 
and also to agree to support, maintain, and defend the independent 
Government of the Confederate States. The alternative was 
banishment within thirty days.”* A deputation of Friends appealed 
to some leading members of the legislature who took up their cause 
in the debate, pointing out that the proposal turned every Friend 
into a soldier or an exile. One speaker, Graham, declared : “ It 
would amount to a decree of wholesale expatriation of the Quakers, 
1 Cartland, Southern Heroes, p. 124. 


THE UNITED STJTES 439 

and on the expulsion of such a people from among our amidst the 
whole civilized world would cry ‘ shame.’ ” The Bill was not passed, 
and at first North Carolina Friends were not much harassed by the 
State drafts. In 1862, however, the Confederate Congress passed 
the first general Conscription Act, to be enforced by the several 
States. Friends petitioned the State legislatures for relief, and 
deputations journeyed to Richmond to appeal to Congress. The 
Senate Committee before which they appeared was in favour of 
entire exemption, but the final result was an amendment exempting 
“ Friends, Dunkards, Nazarenes and Mennonites,” duly certified 
to be members of these sects in October 1862, from the draft on 
furnishing a substitute or paying a commutation of five hundred 
dollars. 1 The State legislatures also imposed smaller fines. The 
attitude of Friends towards the concession was well stated by a 
minute of North Carolina Yearly Meeting held in the autumn: 2 
“We cannot conscientiously pay the specified tax, it being imposed 
upon us on account of our principles, as the price exacted of us for 
religious liberty. Yet we do appreciate the good intentions of those 
members of Congress who had it in their hearts to do something 
for our relief; and we recommend that those parents who, moved 
by sympathy, or those young men who, dreading the evils of a 
military camp, have availed themselves of this law, shall be treated 
in a tender manner by their Monthly Meetings.” In other words 
such payment was not to be deemed an offence requiring disown- 
ment. Sooner or later a number of young men did pay, some after 
a severe experience of the hardships of resistance. A few accepted 
alternative service—usually in the salt works—which was occasion¬ 
ally offered by lenient officials. Others fled over the State boundaries 
to the West or, in the wilder districts, took to the woods and hills, 
where they led an outlaw’s life for the remainder of the war. These 
“ bush-whackers ” (as they were called) included many other than 
Friends who wished to avoid service, and as the need for men grew 
more urgent, they were hunted like wild beasts by bands of soldiers 

1 As the value of the Confederate currency dwindled to vanishing point, the 
temptation to gain exemption by this payment increased. J. J. Neave and a 
companion in the winter of 1864 paid seventy dollars for a night’s lodging, “ ten 
dollars each for our beds, twenty for our breakfast, and five for cleaning our boots. 
... I bought all the Confederate paper money, which was the legal tender, that 
I needed for 3^ cents per dollar ”—having brought gold with him ( Leaves from 
the Journal of Joseph James Nea<ve , 1911, p. 46). 

1 Southern Heroes , pp. 140-1. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


44° 

under the provost-marshals. Both in North Carolina and Tennessee 
sympathetic Quaker farmers, at great risk to themselves, found 
hiding places for the fugitives, whether Friends or not. Some for 
a year or more kept fifteen or twenty men in concealment and fed 
them by night. 1 The real trial, however, fell upon those Friends 
who would neither buy exemption nor evade punishment, and on 
many who, though holding Friends’ views, were not in actual 
membership at the date required by law. Some had worshipped 
with Friends for many years, while others were drawn to them 
during the war by a sympathy of principles. Writers have been 
found to sneer at “ war-Quakers,” but (as an account published by 
North Carolina Friends quietly remarks) “such a step did not allow 
of much hope of escape from suffering.” 3 

After describing the outbreak of war, the account continues : 

“ It was in the midst of such commotions that many were led 
to very serious thoughts upon the inconsistency of war and fighting 
with the loving and quiet spirit of a disciple of Jesus. Decided first 
upon this point, and then led on to the consideration of others, many 
sought admission to our Society. The whole number of these, 
including those members of their families who were often received 
with them, was about six hundred. . . .Thus, it fell out that the 
storm burst with the greater violence upon some who were in many 
ways the least prepared to meet it. By their old associates those 
who had adopted such views were regarded as lacking the excuse 
of early training, and in their family circles the sufferings they 
endured had often to be shared more or less by those who did not 
partake of the convictions that occasioned it. ... In the great 
multitude that swelled the two vast armies arrayed against each other, 
there could not have been found instances of more lofty heroism, 
of calmer courage, and of more fearless unshrinking endurance 
of death and agonies beyond those of death, than were exhibited 

1 Near Holly Springs, North Carolina, the home guard imprisoned the parents 
and wives of missing conscripts in an old schoolhouse where they tortured them 
to find out the men’s hiding-places. At times the fugitives, who were lurking in 
the neighbourhood, would surrender to save their parents. “ The soldiers placed 
the hands and fingers of the aged men and women between the lower rails of the 
fence, and with its crushing weight upon them would wait to be told what they 
wished. . . . They would sometimes tie a rope around the waist of the women and 
hang them to a tree ” Southern Heroes , pp. 184-5, where the names of Quaker 
witnesses to these brutalities are given). 

* Account of the Sufferings of Friends of North Carolina Yearly Meeting , quoted 
in Southern Heroes, pp. 152-3. 


THE UNITED STJTES 


441 


by that little band who made up another army and followed as their 
only captain, the Prince of Peace.” The pages of the pamphlet 
and of Cartland’s fuller history, Southern Heroes, give, in matter- 
of-fact language, sufficient justification for this verdict. 1 The narra¬ 
tives come from the conscripts themselves, or from eye-witnesses of 
their sufferings, and they are a monotonous record of brutal military 
punishments met by patient endurance. The sufferers were mostly 
men of humble rank and little influence, small farmers, or artisans, 
with quaint Old Testament prenomens, telling of simple Bible- 
reading parents. 

As was natural, they fared worse towards the end of the war, 
when the South was in desperate plight, but some of the earlier 
conscripts were for years in the hands of the army. Jesse Buckner, 
for example, was a Baptist colonel in a military company, who, 
at the outbreak of war, was surprised by Friends’ unwillingness 
to serve. As he showed them some leniency he lost his post and 
gained the conviction that “ war is contrary to the Gospel.” 
Journeying one night, he was lost in the woods, where he took 
shelter on the steps of an isolated Friends’ meeting-house. “There 
alone in the darkness of the night, meditating upon Friends’ principles, 
the serious condition of the country, and the awfulness of war, he 
became satisfied that it was his duty to unite himself with the people 
who worshipped in that house.” At first he evaded the draft, but 
he soon felt this to be an unworthy course, and for nearly three 
years he was driven from camp to camp, “ often at the point of the 
bayonet,” enduring much for his refusal to bear arms, until the end 
of the war set him free. 2 In some cases, however, the steadfastness 
of the sufferers won the respect of their guards. Solomon Frazier, 
after going through a week of tortures, was relieved by the visit of 

1 An analysis of Cartland’s book produces the following statistics in regard to 
Friends of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. His allusions to those who 
obtained exemption or escaped are only incidental, and probably many more cases 
were unrecorded, but the number of conscripts is approximately accurate. There 
is a slight overlapping in the figures, as some Friends fall under more than one 
head, those e.g. who paid exemption after an experience of conscription : 
Conscripted and maltreated, 50 ; Died from this treatment, 5 ; Accepted non¬ 
military service, 27 ; Escaped into hiding, 23 ; Paid exemption, 140. An 
enrolling officer at Raleigh in April 1863 told two Friend-conscripts that over 
$20,000 had been paid him for exemption by Quakers {Southern Heroes , p. 256). 
If this were the Government fine, it would imply that forty Quakers appeared 
before this one officer. As far as is known only two Friends yielded and joined the 
army ( Friend , 1866, p. 112). 

* Southern Heroes , pp. 146-9. 


442 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


an older Friend, who explained Quaker principles to the officials. 
“ Hearing this, they concluded it was useless to try to make a soldier 
of him, and ceased to persecute him, though he was retained as a 
prisoner until the surrender of Salisbury, four months afterwards.” 1 
Four other young Friends, Thomas and Amos Hinshaw, and their 
cousins, Cyrus and Nathan Barker, were a problem to the soldiers 
of their camp, who urged them to solve it by running away. After 
four months they were given a fortnight’s leave, the papers being 
endorsed : “These men are no manner of use in the army.” At 
home they were much urged to pay the exemption tax, which, as 
one of them recalled afterwards, “was a great temptation to us, 
dreading as we did to return to the camp. On the second of the third 
month, 1863, we again took leave of our dear families and friends 
at home, which, I think, was as hard a trial as we have had ever 
to experience. The officers and men all seemed glad to see us, and 
gave us a cordial welcome. No military duty was required of us, not 
even to answer a roll-call. ”2 

But such leniency was a rare exception. Gideon Macon, for 
instance, on his refusal to serve or do the work of the camp kitchen, 
was “ bucked down ” for an hour—a punishment which seems to 
have been a survival from the “ tying neck and heels,” undergone 
by earlier Friends. “ The man ... is made to sit down on the 
ground ; his wrists are firmly bound together by strong cords or 
withes ; drawing up the knees, his arms are pressed over them 
until a stout stick can be thrust over the elbows, under the knees, 
and thus the man’s feet and hands are rendered useless for the time 
being. He can neither crawl nor creep.”3 The regiment was in 
retreat before the army of the North ; the commander threatened 
to get rid of this useless soldier by hanging him, but in the end he 
was sent to Petersburg, one of the miserable army prisons, where 
he dragged out weeks of endurance, until set free by the surrender 
of Lee at Appomattox. His brother, Ahijah, after serving early 
in the war as a volunteer, became convinced of Friends’ principles, 
and joined the Society, too late, of course, to benefit by the exemp¬ 
tion He was conscripted, “ hurried to Richmond, and immediately 
required to take a gun and fight. But he was in no mood for fighting 
so they put him under guard, and for food gave him only cane-seed 
meal. This was followed by severe illness, and he was removed 

* Southern Heroes, pp. 201-4. > lbid. y p. 100 

3 Ibid., p. 186. V 99 


THE UNITED STJTES 


443 

to a hospital in Richmond, where he soon passed away.” 1 A third 
brother, Isaiah, also became a Friend after the passing of the exemp¬ 
tion law. He was conscripted, not being allowed to see his wife and 
children, and was sent to the army a day or two before the battle of 
Winchester. When the action began, an officer ordered him to the 
front line, “ to stop bullets,” if he would not fight. He remained 
there through the battle in “ plain citizen’s dress,” but escaped all 
injury though his comrades fell around him. When the retreat began, 
as he did not join in it, he was captured by the Northern army, 
and in a few days he died, from the shock and strain of his experiences 

Seth Loflin, another North Carolinan, was sent in 1864 to the 
camp near Petersburg, Virginia. On his refusal to take a gun, on the 
grounds of Christian principle, “ first they kept him without sleep 
for thirty-six hours, a soldier standing by with a bayonet, to pierce 
him, should he fall asleep. Finding that this did not overcome his 
scruples, they proceeded for three hours each day to buck him down. 
He was then suspended by his thumbs for an hour and a half. 3 
This terrible ordeal was passed through each day for a week. Then, 
thinking him conquered, they offered him a gun,” but he still 
refused. He was court-martialled, sentenced to be shot, and the 
regiments drawn up to witness the execution. “ Seth Loflin, as 
calm as any man of the immense number surrounding him, asked 
time for prayer. . . . He prayed, not for himself, but for his 
enemies, ‘ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ ” 
Upon this, the firing party, in defiance of all discipline, declared 
that they would not shoot. The officers, too, were softened, and 
revoked the sentence to one of imprisonment. In the military prison 
he underwent severe punishment for weeks until at last his physical 
powers gave way. He died in hospital after a long illness. One of 
the officers, who had learnt to know him, wrote to his wife : 

“ It is my painful duty to inform you that Seth W. Loflin died 
at Windsor Hospital at Richmond on the 8th of December, 1864. 
He died, as he had lived, a true, humble, and devoted Christian ; 
true to his faith and religion. . .We pitied and sympathized 
with him .”3 

* Cartland, Southern Heroes , pp. 189-91. 

» “If I had the Hon. Member for Hanley in my company at the front, he would 
be strung up by the thumbs before he had been there half-an-hour ” (Captain D. 
Campbell, in House of Commons, January 10, 1916). 

3 Southern Heroes , pp. 211-13- 


444 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


The two other Friends who died from their sufferings were 
Jesse Osborn and Edward Harris. Many more underwent persecu¬ 
tion of the same nature and intensity as that already described. 
Lewis Caudle was sent into battle with a gun tied on to him, but 
escaped all injury. He was left on the battlefield in the retreat, where 
he slept among the dead and dying, and at dawn found his way to 
his home at Deep River. As this was near the end of the war he 
was unmolested. William Hockett, like Loflin, was brought before 
a firing party, when his prayer for his executioners so touched their, 
hearts that he was reprieved. He was dragged along with the regiment 
till the battle of Gettysburg, where he saw the horrible sufferings 
of the wounded. A day or two later he was captured by a detachment 
Union Cavalry. Northern Friends interested themselves in his 
case and that of other captured Friends, but an impasse appeared 
when the commander at Fort Delaware offered them oaths of 
allegiance to the Union, as a preliminary to release. On their refusal, 
“ he said we professed to be a law-abiding people. We told him 
we were, ... but if the law required things of us that came into 
conflict with our religious feelings, we peaceably submitted to the 
penalty, if it was death, rather than wound our consciences.” The 
commander then took their affirmations, merely binding them not 
to go into or correspond with the South without permission from 
the Secretary of War. “ Tenderly bidding us farewell, he said, ‘ Don’t 
be too late for the cars.’ We were on time.” Till the end of the 
war they remained among Northern Friends, who gave them liberal 
hospitality and help.* The story of Hockett’s brothers, Himelius 
and Jesse, was told by them later with a naivete which bears the 
stamp of truth. 3 In the draft of 1862 they were not ill-treated, 
and soon discharged. Next year they were again conscripted, when 
a determined attempt was made to break their wills. The General 
offered then military service, employment at the salt works, or 
payment of the tax, and shut them up in prison without food or 
drink to make the decision. “ We were impressed,” said Himelius, 

‘ that it would be right to make a full surrender, and to trust wholly 
to a kind Providence, so we told the captain of the guard we had 
some cakes and cheese in our valises, that had been furnished us by 
our wives at home. ... ‘Oh !’ he said, ‘I guess you might 
keep that,’ and he seemed very tender, but, looking at the guards, 
who were looking at him, there seemed no way for him to evade.” 

* Southern Heroes, pp. 231-49- * Ibid., pp. 254-84. 


THE UNITED STJTES 


445 

One night during the imprisonment, during a heavy shower of rain, 
Hockett could have drunk water trickling from the eaves, “ but 
I felt restrained from taking any of it. Arousing my brother, who 
had fallen asleep, I asked him about it, and he said he thought we 
had better not. So we went to sleep again.” After five days of starva¬ 
tion, some of the officers and people of the town who had heard 
of their plight, appealed to the Governor, who revoked the sentence 
At first they were too weak to eat, except in carefully doled-out 
portions ; but when they had recovered, they were sent to hard 
labour in a military prison. After some weeks Himelius Hockett 
was court-martialled. “ On the third of eighth month I was called 
out on dress parade to receive with others the sentence of the court- 
martial. For desertion some were to have the letter D branded 
indelibly on their bodies, three inches broad. This was done in my 
presence with a hot iron, accompanied by the screams of the unhappy 
victims. ... I was sentenced to six months’ hard labour in one 
of the military forts, bound with heavy ball and chain.” He learned 
that the officers of the court-martial had wished to discharge him, 
but that Jefferson Davis, the President, had insisted on some 
punishment. A few days later “we were ordered to assist in 
unloading ordnance cars, and the officers ordered that we should 
be pierced four inches deep with bayonets if we refused. On 
declining to do this service, my brother was pierced cruelly with 
bayonets, while I was hung up by the thumbs almost clear of the 
ground. After I had remained in this suffering position for some 
time, the corporal was told that he had no orders to tie up either 
of us, but to pierce us with bayonets, and that he had better 
obey orders. So I was untied and pierced with a bayonet, though 
slightly, perhaps on account of having already suffered unauthorized 
punishment.” 1 After a week at a military fort, where, apart from 
the ball and chain punishment, he was kindly treated, he was 
summoned back, and with his brother moved from centre to centre. 
Now that their sincerity was proved, they met with considerable 

* This was a favourite form of punishment. In one case a boy of eighteen 
(Tilghman Vestal of Tennessee) endured it. In reply to a remonstrance from 
his relatives, the major of the regiment wrote suavely that “ compulsory means 
were used on the occasion referred to . . . and he was pricked with bayonets, 
but not to an extent to unfit him for duty. This proceeding was probably 
irregular.” After a repeated experience of “ this proceeding,” which did not make 
hinT yield, the boy was sent to the filth and misery of Salisbury prison, but after 
six weeks his friends succeeding in obtaining his release (Southern Heroes, p. 317). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


446 

kindness and, as he ingenuously says, they had so much intercourse 
with officers and men, including the prisoners of both armies, that 
it was “ more like opening a mission-field than being in a military 
prison.” At last they were discharged and returned home to find 
that their wives had been courageously working on their little 
farms to support themselves and their children. In the record of 
Quaker sufferings, the patient endurance of the conscripts’ families 
must not be forgotten. It was William Hockett’s wife who 
encouraged him to meet the draft by saying : “ Be faithful, William, 
for I would rather hear of thy dying a martyr for Christ’s sake than 
that thou shouldest sin against him by staying with me.” Friends 
in Virginia, who were few in number, formed part of Baltimore 
Yearly Meetings (“ Hicksite ” and “Orthodox”), but throughout 
the war they were practically cut off from intercourse with their 
fellow members. Some lived near Richmond, the Confederate 
capital, and others round Winchester, in the north of the State, 
in a district which was in constant occupation by one or other of 
the contending armies. Winchester itself is said to have changed 
hands more than seventy times in the course of the war. Friends’ 
meeting-houses were occupied by Federal and Confederate troops 
in turn, some as barracks and others as hospitals. The same fate 
overtook the buildings of other denominations and the few schools, 
so that throughout these years public worship and education were 
in abeyance. After the war, Baltimore Meeting for Sufferings 
published an account of the conditions which had prevailed in this 
district “ to show some of the horrors of civil war in the disregard 
of the peace, rights, and liberty of the individual citizen.” 1 It told 
of arbitrary arrests and imprisonments of Friends suspected of Union 
sympathies, of domiciliary visits and confiscation of property. One 
“Hicksite” Friend, Job Throckmorton, died from his sufferings 
under military arrest.* The Federal Government ultimately paid 
compensation for a proportion of the loss caused by the raids of 
Union troops in Virginia and North Carolina, but many sufferers 
were brought to the verge of ruin. Some of the young Friends 
subject to the conscription escaped to the Northern States ; yet the 
few Friends of any influence in Virginia had much to do in helping 
their own members and those of other peace sects who were called 
up under the draft. John B. Crenshaw, of Richmond, took a leading 

* Southern Heroes , pp. 363 foil., also Southern Quakers , p. 303. 

* Rufus Jones, Later Periods of Quakerism, p. 741. 


THE UNITED STJTES 


447 

part in this work and in the delegations of Southern Friends to the 
Confederate Government. His father had fought in the war of 1812, 
after which, becoming an ardent supporter of peace and opponent 
of slavery, he joined the Society of Friends. A young English Friend, 
Joseph James Neave, who was drawn to visit the South on a mission 
of love and sympathy, described John Crenshaw as a man “ who 
stood for truth and peace and righteousness ” in those dark days. 

Throughout the winter of 1864-5, J- J- Neave travelled among 
the Friends of the South, bringing them the sympathy of English 
Friends. Occasionally the military authorities were suspicious of 
his journeys, but they were disarmed by his simple statement that 
“Friends were one people the world over, that we were opposed 
to all war, and lived at peace among ourselves and with all men 
. . . and I felt it my duty to come if I could help them or do them 
any good.” 1 He saw the miseries which war brings to the non- 
combatant, and it was partly his reports as an eye-witness which 
stirred up Friends in the North and in England to send aid to their 
fellow members as soon as the way was open. Immediately after 
Lee’s surrender the “ Baltimore Association of Friends ” was 
formed as an agency to distribute their gifts. The work included 
the distribution of food and clothing, the restocking of farms, the 
rebuilding of Meeting-houses, and help towards the education of 
the children. For some years after the war this “ reconstruction ” 
claimed a large share of the thought and attention of Northern 
Friends. 2 Amid all the bitterness which the struggle and the 
settlement left behind, the love and friendship of Quakers North 
and South was a source of wonder to their more warlike neighbours. 
In the autumn of 1866 a Peace Conference of delegates from seven 
“Orthodox” Yearly Meetings, held at Baltimore, reaffirmed 
the peace position. In the eyes of most Friends, and indeed of many 
other thoughtful citizens, the war and its resultant evils were a terrible 
price to pay even for the destruction of slavery and the preservation 
of the Union, and the real cost of the war has been often used since 
to emphasize the argument for peace. The mere loss of life and 
expenditure of money was appalling and unprecedented. “We lost 
six hundred and fifty-six thousand men, or about one-sixth as many 
as there were slaves, and three billions and seven hundred millions 

1 Leaves from the Journal of J. J . Neave> pp. 26-84. 

* Southern Heroes , pp. 425 foil. Also Quaker periodicals (English and 
American) of the years after the war. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


448 

of dollars, not including the loss of the labour and industry of the 
vast armies, North and South, during the four years of war. The 
valuation set on the slaves at the request of Abraham Lincoln, in 
1862, by members of Congress from the border States, was three 
hundred dollars each, and assuming the number at four millions, 
which is an over-estimate, the value of all the slaves in the United 
States was one billion and two hundred millions of dollars, or less 
than one-third of the money cost of the war.” 1 

After the close of the struggle, for fifty years American Friends 
were free from the trials of war and conscription, but in these 
quieter days they maintained their testimony for peace. It is 
rash for a writer in another country to make a general state¬ 
ment about communities with a total membership of some one 
hundred and twenty thousand, but on the whole it appears that 
the Yearly Meetings of the Eastern States have taken the lead 
in this branch of Friends’ work. Apart from this, many indi¬ 
vidual Friends have been leaders and organizers in the general 
peace movement of the United States. To mention only two : 
for many years the late Dr. Benjamin Trueblood, of Boston (of 
the “ Orthodox ” branch) was the Secretary of the American 
Peace Society, and since 1895 Albert Smiley, an “Orthodox” 
Friend, organized yearly at Lake Mohonk, New York State, a 
conference on International Arbitration attended by jurists and 
peace workers of all lands, which was maintained after his death 
until the outbreak of war. 

In one direction the peace work of Friends met with striking 
recognition from the National Government. In the year 1869 
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was urged by Thomas Wistar, an 
active and devoted helper of the Indians, to appeal to Congress 
and the executive on behalf both of those tribes living on reservations 
and those with whom the United States had just waged a bloody 
war. A delegation, led by Wistar, presented this memorial to the 
legislature and to the President-elect, Ulysses S. Grant, the hero 
of the Civil War. A similar memorial had been presented on behalf 
of some bodies of “Liberal” Friends in 1867, and by seven 

1 From War Unnecessary and Unchristian, an essay of Augustine Jones, 
published by the American Peace Society. In 18 80, the Secretary for the Treasury 
declared the expenses of the war on account of the Northern army 1861-79 
were $6,796,798,508, or sufficient to have purchased every slave at five times his 
market value. The Continental and American billion = one thousand millions 
(Cartland, Southern Heroes , p. 13). 


THE UNITED STJTES 449 

“Orthodox” Yearly Meetings, almost simultaneously with that 
from Philadelphia. 1 The impression made upon his mind was 
reflected in his first message to Congress. In this, after reference 
to the Indian problem and to the ill-success of past dealings with 
them, he continued :— 

“ I have attempted a new policy towards these wards of the 
nation (they cannot be regarded in any other light than as wards) 
with fair results so far as tried, which I hope will be attended 
ultimately with great success. The Society of Friends is well known 
as having succeeded in living in peace with the Indians in the early 
settlement of Pennsylvania, while their white neighbours of other 
sects in other sections were constantly embroiled. They are also 
known for their opposition to all strife, violence, and war, and are 
generally noted for their strict integrity and fair dealings. These 
considerations induced me to give the management of a few reserva¬ 
tions of Indians to them, and to lay the burden of the selection of 
agents upon the Society itself.” Thus, two hundred years later, 
an attempt was made to revert to the old policy of William Penn. 2 
For some fifteen years the various branches of the Society continued 
to work on the stations entrusted to them, although after Grant’s 
second term expired in 1877, his policy was considerably modified 
by the new heads of the Indian Department. Kelsey 3 says that 
under President Hayes the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs 
began to thwart the work of Friends, accusing them of inefficiency 
and dishonesty. He removed some from their posts, and in May 1879 
the Associated Committee (of “Orthodox” Friends), in a formal 
note to the President, resigned all further responsibility for Indian 
affairs. The “Liberal” Friends were also similarly hampered 
in their work. “ It should be said that the Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs who assailed the ability and integrity of Friends was 
peremptorily removed from his position early in 1880 under charges 
of gross malfeasance in office.” Kelsey relates several instances of 
the tact and courage of Friend agents in their dealings with dangerous 
and malcontent Indians. The last of the Friends’ agents was with¬ 
drawn in 1895, but the control of the work had practically passed 
out of Quaker hands in 1887. Friends continued, however, to 

i Kelsey, Friends and the Indians , pp. 166-7. 

* Next year Grant gave the remaining agencies to other denominations 
with missions among the Indians. 

J Friends and the Indians , p. 185. 

29 


450 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


carry on missionary and educational work among the Indians : 
the “ Associated Committee on Indian Affairs,” which was formed 
by the “ Orthodox” Yearly Meetings, to carry on the Government 
work, is still active in this unofficial service, and other Yearly 
Meetings of both branches have their own committees for the 
purpose. After the acquisition of Alaska by the United States, 
Friends from Oregon, Kansas, and Wilmington Yearly Meetings 
carried on pioneer missionary work in that untilled field, but at 
last handed their stations to the Presbyterians, also engaged in the 
work there. 

One effect of the hostilities with Spain in 1898 and the 
“ war of pacification ” which followed in the Philippines was to 
draw Friends of all branches closer together in their common 
work for peace. The bitterness which followed the separations of 
the earlier part of the nineteenth century had largely died away, 
but certain difficulties in the way of “ correspondence ” and 
“ recognition ” remained (and still remain). Until recently these 
have tended to prevent full co-operation even in matters of practical 
Christianity on which all were at one. 1 2 But now this isolation may 
be regarded as a thing of the past in the Eastern States. An 
“American Friends’ Peace Conference” was held in Philadelphia 
from December 12th to 14th, 1901. For the first time since the 
separation in 1827 members of all the Quaker bodies met together 
to take counsel one with another. The conference, which was well 
attended, sat for some seven hours daily, listening to short papers 
by leading Friends on various aspects of the peace question and 
taking part in discussion upon them.* 

Towards the end of the proceedings a “ Declaration ” was 
adopted, which included a statement that “this conference of 
members of the different bodies of Friends in America is convinced 
that lapse of time has not made necessary any change in the position 
which the Friends have always taken on the subject of war. . . . 
War in its spirit, its deeds, the persistent animosities which it 
generates, the individual and social degeneration produced by it is 
the antithesis of Christianity, and the negation, for the time being, 
of the moral order of the world.” 

1 Thomas, History of Friends in America t pp. 149-54, 169, gives a clear state¬ 
ment of what is meant by these terms. 

2 A full report was published by the conference under the title, The American 
bmends' Peace Conference . . . 1901 (Philadelphia, 1902), 234 pages. 


THE UNITED STJTES 451 

The existing wars in South Africa and the Philippines, though 
not named, were unmistakably condemned. “ We deplore the 
fact that nations making high profession of Christianity are at 
present engaged in war with less civilized and enlightened peoples, 
and we believe the time has fully come when the voice of enlightened 
humanity should make itself heard, calling for the adjustment of the 
matters at issue by the Christian methods which have . . . proved 
themselves as practical as they are reasonable and humane.” Probably 
the most fruitful result of the conference was the establishment 
of the habit of co-operation in peace activities between the different 
branches, and this has continued. There is not space here to give 
a full account of the peace work of American Friends during the 
past twenty years. In nature and scope it did not differ widely from 
that carried on in England. The “Five Years’ Meeting” (an 
official quinquennial conference of delegates of the majority of 
the “Orthodox” Yearly Meetings 1 ) in 1903, through one of 
its committees, the Board on Legislation, was largely instrumental 
in securing an amendment to the National Militia Law exempting 
Friends and members of other peace sects. 3 “ Provided that nothing 
in this Act shall be construed to require or compel any member of 
any well-recognized religious sect or organization at present organized 
and existing, whose creed forbids its members to participate in war 
in any form and whose religious convictions are against war or 
participation therein, in accordance with the creed of the said 
religious organization, to serve in the militia or any other armed or 
volunteer force under the jurisdiction of and authority of the 
United States.” 

This exemption, as will be seen, took no account of the peace 
convictions of individuals outside these particular sects. 

* Vide, Thomas, Friends in America, pp. 24-6, 215 foil. 

* Congressional Record, xxxvi. 780. 


CHAPTER XVII 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 

The records of the first generation of Friends contain many 
instances of their journeyings to distant lands, whither they 
penetrated, undeterred by difficulties of travel and intercourse, and 
by the persecution which often awaited them. “ England is as a family 
of prophets which must spread over all nations,” declared the Epistle 
of the General Meeting of Friends, held at Skipton in 1660. One 
Friend, George Robinson, had already visited Jerusalem, and in that 
very year a woman, Mary Fisher, found her way on foot and alone 
to the Sultan, then encamped in the midst of his troops at Adrianople. 
He marvelled at her safe passage through so many dangers, listened 
gravely to her “ message from the Great God,” saying at the close 
“ it was truth,” and offered her an escort back to the Franks. This 
she declined, returning as she came, without guard or guide. Two 
other women endured a long imprisonment in the dungeons of the 
Inquisition at Malta, and a similar fate befell Friends both in France 
and Italy. In Rome, indeed, one died in prison, and another, 
John Perrott, returned half-crazed by his sufferings, to bring a dis¬ 
turbing element into the affairs of the Church at home. John Philly 
and Thomas Moore, travelling in Austria in 1662, visited a Huterite 
colony near Pressburg. This sect had many resemblances to that 
of the Mennonites, including the refusal to bear arms. The two 
Friends found sympathy and kindness amongst them, but as they 
passed on to visit another settlement, they were seized at Comora 
on a charge of heresy. They were sent from prison to prison, enduring 
at times severe torture, and the worse trial (in a strange land) of 
separation from one another. Their peace views must have been 
one count in the accusation against them, perhaps inferred from 
their association with the Huterites. In one prison, says Moore, 
the jailer did try me many ways, for he would have me learn to 

453 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 453 

shoot, and hath tied match about my fingers, and hath struck to make 
me hold the musket, but I was like a fool. And they made themselves 
sport with me, and several times would put pistols in my hands, and 
bid me shoot sometimes in seeming earnest and sometimes to make 
sport before strangers.” Eventually both Moore and Philly were 
released, finding their way by diverse routes back to England. 1 * In 
none of these countries, however, did any growth of native 
Quakerism spring up in the wake of these brief visits. In Holland 
and Germany Friends met with more success, which was due to 
several causes. Throughout the seventeenth century, both in theology 
and trade, there was much intercourse between English and “ Dutch ” 
(using the latter term to cover the “ High Dutch ” of Germany). 
To each the national characteristics and modes of religious thought 
of the other were comparatively familiar. The development of 
Nonconformity in England had been largely influenced by emigrants 
from these lands in the days of persecution, and now, in their turn, 
the Friends crossed the sea with their contribution to a more spiritual 
interpretation of Christianity. Among the existing religious bodies 
were some from whom they could receive a sympathetic welcome. 
In both countries the Mennonites and the followers of Schwenkfeld, 
and in Holland the Collegiants (the little community which 
befriended Spinoza after his excommunication by the Amsterdam 
Synagogue) and the Labadists had various points of contact with 
Friends. 3 It is probable that the majority of “ convincements ” 
were drawn from these sects. An “ Account of the first settlement 
of Friends in Holland and places adjacent” presented to the Yearly 
Meeting of 1771, by a deputation of English Friends who had 

1 Besse, Sufferings, ii. ch. xiv., gives a full account of these episodes. A 
picturesque story tells how Hester Biddle (or Bidley) in the reign of Wiliam 
and Mary approached the Queen to tell of her grief “ as a woman and a 
Christian,” that “ so great and tedious a war was waged between Christians.” 

Next she crossed to France, and after many difficulties was admitted to the 
audience chamber at Versailles. There she addressed Louis XIV in the same 
strain, to which he replied : “ But, woman, I desire peace, and would have 
peace, and tell the Prince of Orange so.” Unfortunately, there is no authori¬ 
tative source for the tale. It is first related by the Dutchman, Gerald Croese, in 
his Latin General History of the Quakers (English translation 1696, Part II. p. 267). 
This work is quite unreliable in details. Friends at the time rejected the story, 
vide the Letter of George Keith printed with the English edition of Croese. 

3 For these sects, and for the religious connection between Holland and 
Germany vide Robert Barclay, Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Common¬ 
wealth, 1879 ; Rufus Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
Centuries, 1914. 


454 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


visited Holland and North Germany in the preceding year, gives 
thirteen names of Meetings settled between the years 1656 and 1679. 
They were : Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Haarlem, Alkmaar, Lans- 
meer in Waterland, Leeuwarden, Harlingen, Danzig, Hamburg, 
Friedrichstadt (in Holstein), Emden, Groningen, and Crefeld. In 
1679 a Yearly Meeting was established for Holland, and in 1683 
for Germany. This expansion was due to the missionary work 
of three Friends : William Caton, William Ames, and John Stubbs, 
between 1656 and 1660. Of these, Ames and Stubbs had been 
Baptists before they were Friends. It was through William Ames 
that Jacob Sewel, the father of the first historian of Quakerism, 
became a Friend, and later Ames’ preaching won over the little 
company of Baptists at Kriesheim in the Palatinate, who, after their 
migration to Pennsylvania, were pioneers in the protest against slavery. 

These Dutch and German Friends were strengthened by frequent 
visits from English leaders of the first generation of the Society. 
Fox, Penn, Barclay, and Stephen Crisp were among their helpers. 
It is possible that Penn and Barclay’s intercourse with Elizabeth, 
Princess Palatine, and the high esteem in which they were held 
by her, had some influence in obtaining recognition in Holland 
for Friends as a religious body, for there they soon enjoyed full 
liberty of conscience. 1 In the various German cities their case was 
harder. The Friends of Friedrichstadt, indeed, were unmolested 
until the close of the seventeenth century, but in Danzig (then 
Polish territory) and Emden, they soon came into collision with the 
authorities. Fox was active in writing on their behalf to the magis¬ 
trates and rulers of these city states. His appeals, usually turned 
into Latin by some more scholarly Friend, pressed home the utter 
inconsistency of persecution by professors of religion. In 1689 he 
wrote to the magistrates of Danzig, who had banished some Friends 
merely for meeting to worship : 

“ Are not you worse than the Turks, who let many religions 
be in their country, yea Christians, and to meet peaceably ? Yea, 
the Turkish patroons let our Friends that were captives meet together 
at Algiers, and said, it was good so to do.’ ... I pray you, what 
scripture have you for this practice ? It is good for you to be 
humble, to do justly and love mercy, call home your banished ones 
and love and cherish them. Yea, though they were your enemies, 
you are to obey the command of Christ and love them. I wonder 
1 Vide Chapter V. 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 455 

how you and your wives and families can sleep quietly in your beds, 
that do such cruel actions.” 1 

After Fox’s death the care of these foreign Friends passed into 
the hands of the Meeting for Sufferings. Beyond sending letters of 
sympathy and gifts of money they could do little to relieve their 
German brethren from the persecution they endured “for not 
bearing arms,” or in general, “ for truth and their testimony 
thereto.” 3 It is evident from a curious letter preserved in the Book 
of Cases that in 1700, in Danzig at least, courage had nearly 
failed. On the 18th of Eighth Month (October) correspondents from 
the Meeting for Sufferings write to John Clause, of that city, with 
reference to the proposal of Danzig Friends to emigrate to Holland 
or England : “which our said meeting and Friends here are sorry 
for and much dissatisfied with,” since they have “so long borne 
a testimony for Truth through their sufferings.” Their plea that 
they are reluctant to live on charity must be dismissed, since English 
Friends have shown no weariness in helping them. Nor has the 
injunction to the Apostles to flee into another city any application 
in this case. “ We do not find that the Church of Thessalonica, 
nor any other Church of the primitive Christians, were required 
to flee from their respective cities or places under persecution, but 
to be faithful unto death that they might receive a crown of life.” 
So the letter runs, from the comfortable security of London, but 
a postscript, added as an afterthought, may have proved more 
cheering to the Danzig readers than this vicarious heroism. 

“ There hath been endeavours used with the King of England 
on the Friends’ behalf in Dantzic, and the King was pleased to take 
so much notice thereof as to give orders to the Secretary of State 
here to advise Sir William Browne, merchant in Dantzic, and lately 
gone from this city to use his influence with the magistrates of that 
city for the ease and relief of Friends .”4 

1 Journal (8th edition), ii. 485. 

* Epistles of London Yearly Meeting 1697 and 1706. 

3 Book of Cases , vol. ii. 

4 In 1694, William had addressed a letter to the Count Palatine of the Rhine 
on behalf of the persecuted “ Menists ” (Mennonites) in his dominions, a copy 
of which the Meeting for Sufferings preserved in the Book of Cases , ii. 53, 
probably for use as a precedent. William spoke in high terms of his Mennonite 
subjects in Holland as peaceable and industrious folk. In 1709 the Meeting 
interested itself again in these Mennonites, who had left the Palatinate on account 
of “ general poverty and misery.” Friends supplied their immediate wants, 
furnished them with Quaker books in “ High Dutch,” and offered them £50 
when about “ to export themselves beyond the seas,” to Pennyslvania. 


456 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


In the same year Friedrichstadt Friends were in trouble from 
their refusal to observe the appointed fast-days by shutting their 
shops. They had appealed to the Duke of Holstein and to his 
Lieutenant-General Bannian. The latter they presented with 
French copies of Barclay’s Apology and Penn’s No Cross, No Crown, 
“ which he took very kindly, and inquired after the good man 
William Penn and where he now was, and promised to assist them.” 
This promise he must have performed, since an order came from 
the Duke to the magistrates to “ let your arbitrary punishments 
alone.” 1 

The Friedrichstadt Friends maintained their struggle for religious 
liberty. In 1712 worse evils overtook them and their fellow- 
countrymen through the campaigns waged in Holstein by Peter the 
Great and the Danes against Charles XII of Sweden and the 
Duke of Holstein. Jacob Hagen, a Hamburg Quaker, wrote to 
London a doleful account of his visit to Friedrichstadt, the “seat 
of warr ” : * “ The Zaer is there with his generals, and about four 
thousand men are quartered upon the inhabitants of that place, 
from ten, twenty, to thirty men in a family, and one or two officers 
and some less. They quarter themselves as they please and use great 
insolence, and are also a great burden to the inhabitants, hardly 
bearable with the charge of maintaining them with provisions, etc., 
which is very dear—one pound of butter, iod. and I2d. to I4d., 
and hardly to be had, 20 eggs 2od. to 24d., and no fireing to be 
had for money, which causeth great uneasiness. The city so dirty 
that there is hardly passing the streets without boots. The horses 
are kept in the lower rooms of the house, and above stairs is full of 
people and their baggage. The country people are mostly ruined 
and destitute, houses and lands spoiled, horses and cattle taken away. 
The miserable state is hardly to be written as it is in reality. The 
war is like to be continued longer than was expected, now the Swedes 
have entered the city Tonengen (Toning), but the King of Denmark 
hath seized the whole dukedom besides.” In a letter of March 7 
he continued the sad story : “ The Muscovites ... are extreme 
cruel and turbulent, and what adds thereto, is their being of a 
different language, which makes their conversation very uneasy. 
They use great exaction on the country people, and many are so 
misused, even some of my acquaintance, that with wife and children 

1 Book of Cases, ii. 

2 Ibid., ii. 195. This letter is dated 24, 12 mo. (Feb.) 1712. 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 


4 57 

have left their habitations, having nothing left, and the longer the 
Swedes continue in Tonengen the worse it will be for the country 
and inhabitants. They demand of Frederickstadt a contribution 
of 30,000 rixdollars, and now they are fallen to 20,000, but neither 
the first nor yet the last is possible to be complied with. . . . Most 
of the horses and cattle are ruined or drove away, and it is impossible 
to write the miserable state and sore visitation which is over those 
places.” Matters had not improved by the next autumn, when the 
Friends wrote, in response to a letter of sympathy from London, 
that “ few people account anything they have their own,” houses 
in the country districts are “ laid in ruins,” and “ the land lieth 
unplowed.” Yet, in the midst of all this desolation, they could 
testify to a very real experience of the love of God. Friends in 
London did not sympathize in words alone, for they remitted fifty 
pounds through Hamburg to their distressed brethren. Probably 
it was in part due to the poverty caused by this disastrous invasion 
that the meetings dwindled so rapidly. 1 

No doubt the Friends joined in the stream of German emigrants 
which set so strongly towards Pennsylvania and other American 
colonies during the first thirty years of the eighteenth century. 
The English deputation of 1771 already mentioned, found only 
one meeting remaining in Holland and North Germany—that of 
Amsterdam. In Holland, as far as Friends could be traced, they 
had joined the Mennonites. There the decay of the Society was 
probably hastened by the lack of any spiritual fervour or missionary 
zeal among the English body during the earlier Hanoverian period. 

The Russian occupation of Friedrichstadt led to one curious 
episode in which Peter the Great was a leading figure. He had already 
come into touch with Friends during his English visit of inquiry 
and self-education in 1697. When the arrival in London of this 
ruler from a distant Empire was known, Thomas Story and Gilbert 
Mollison waited on him to urge that he should allow liberty of 
conscience in his dominions. The young Czar, learning the principles 
of Friends, inquired : “Of what use can you be in any kingdom 
or Government, seeing you will not fight ? ” Story answered : 
“ Many of us had borne arms in times past, and been in many 
battles, and fought with courage and magnanimity, and thought it 

1 It is a curious fact that the empty meeting-house at Friedrichstadt, built by 
donations from English Friends, remained in their hands and was not sold till 
i860 (Proceedings of Yearly Meeting , 1873, p. 43). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


458 

lawful and a duty then, in days of ignorance ; and I myself have 
worn a sword and other arms and knew how to use them. But . . . 
He that commanded that we should love our enemies, hath left us 
no right to fight and destroy, but to convert them. And yet we 
are of use and helpful in any kingdom or Government,” as an 
industrious, quiet people who readily pay taxes, after New Testament 
example, “ to Caesar, who, of right, hath the direction and application 
of them to the various ends of government, to peace or war, as it 
pleaseth him, or as need may be, according to the constitution or 
laws of his kingdom ; and in which we, as subjects, have no direction 
or share. For it is Caesar’s part to rule, in justice and truth ; but 
ours to be subject, and mind our own business, and not to meddle 
with his.” The Czar was not converted by this reasoning, nor by 
a visit from William Penn, George Whitehead, and other Friends, 
although Penn was able to hold conversation with him in German, 
and presented him with some Friends’ books translated into that 
tongue. 1 Yet he was sufficiently interested in the strange new sect 
to attend their meetings occasionally, both at Gracechurch Street, 
and also at Deptford, where he worked in the shipyard. As a fellow 
worshipper, he proved “ very social ; changing seats, standing or 
sitting, as occasion might be, to accommodate others as well as himself.” 
He certainly kept these meetings in remembrance, as he proved 
at Friedrichstadt in 1712. Jacob Hagen told the story in the letter 
already quoted : 

“ Last First Day the Zaar acquainted our friends he was desirous 
to come to their meeting, but they replied, the meeting-house was 
taken up with twenty or thirty soldiers, who had made it like a 
stable. We desired that it might be evacuated, then we could keep 
our meeting. So he immediately gave orders for them to go out, 
and he came in the afternoon with about six or seven of his Princes 
and Generals, and sat with us still and it seemed with much patience. 
(Philip de Weer had a few words) and he stayed with us about an 
hour, to the admiration of many.” Story, who in 1715 heard the tale 
by word of mouth from Jacob Hagen, adds the touch that the Czar 
translated what was said in the meeting to his Staff. The meeting¬ 
house was kept free of soldiers by the Czar’s orders. In gratitude 
he and his suite were presented by Friends with some books, and 
as the Russians asked for the Apology , copies of this were obtained 
from Holland. “Friends, as well as others,” added Hagen, “have 
* Story, Journal, p. 123 ; Whitehead, Christian Progress , pp. 669-72. 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 459 

their full freedom, and the Muscovites make no difference (if they 
get their bellies full) among whom they are quartered.” The next 
great Czar, Alexander I, a hundred years later, also took a real 
interest in Friends. When the Allied rulers visited London in June 
1814 the Meeting for Sufferings presented addresses to both the 
Czar and the King of Prussia. This was done at the instance of 
one of the most interesting and influential Friends of the day 
Etienne de Grellet (1773-1855) was the son of a French porcelain 
manufacturer, ennobled by Louis XVI. Well educated and wealthy, 
the youth had no sympathy with the Revolution. With his brothers 
he joined the Royalist army, although he never saw actual service 
In 1793 he emigrated first to the South, and later to North America. 
During this time Grellet had passed from Roman Catholicism to 
atheism, but now, by a series of striking religious experiences, he 
was led into the Society of Friends. At Philadelphia, where he had 
settled, he was admitted a member in 1796 under the name of Stephen 
Grellet. He soon proved a powerful preacher, and travelled widely 
in the service of his religion in America and Europe. Early in his 
career he had a narrow escape from a gruesome death. During 
an epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia, in 1798, he had worked 
untiringly among the sufferers. He caught the disease and was 
found by the police apparently dead. His name was entered in the 
burial lists as “a French Quaker,” and his coffin was ordered. Yet 
he revived, to live to the age of 82, to cross the Atlantic on four 
visits to Europe, to cheer many struggling souls, and to hold solemn, 
yet friendly, interviews with Kings, Emperors, and the Pope. 1 

It was in 1814, during his second Continental tour, that, as he 
writes: “ I was brought under deep exercise for suffering humanity 
on account of the cruel scourge of war, such as I have so awfully 
beheld during my late engagements in France and Germany. My 
soul was poured forth with supplication to the Lord that he might 
open a door for me to plead with the Kings and rulers of the nations, 
that if possible a return of such a calamity might be averted.” He 
laid the “concern” before the London Yearly Meeting of 1814, 
who adopted it and entrusted its execution to the Meeting for 
Sufferings, a deputation from which approached both rulers. 
Alexander, who at this time was under strong influence of a pietist 
character, had already come into contact with Friends through 

* Pope Pius VII. For this remarkable interview, <iride Memoirs of Stephen 
Grellet , ii. 60, ch. xxxviii. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


460 

the foundation of the Russian Bible Society. The “ respectful and 
affectionate ” address is remarkably warm in tone. It invokes on 
the Czar the blessings promised to “ the merciful and the peace¬ 
maker,” gives a short sketch of Friends’ early sufferings, by which 
they had learned “ to feel for those in all parts of the world who 
may be conscientiously obliged to decline practices which they believe 
to be inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel,” and thus leads 
up to a plea for religious liberty in Russia. A similar plea was the 
main theme of the address to Frederick William of Prussia, to 
which he returned a courteous reply, but added that “ war was 
necessary to procure peace.” There is a tradition that, on seeing 
some drab coats among the crowds witnessing the entrance of the 
Sovereigns of London, the King exclaimed : “ Quakers are very 
good subjects ; I wish I had more of them in my kingdom.” 1 If 
the story is true, he was assuredly an adept at dissembling his love, 
as the little band of Quakers which had gathered at Minden since 
1790 found to their cost. 

Alexander, on the other hand, not only held affecting private 
interviews with William Allen, Stephen Grellet, and other Quakers, 
but, to the gaping astonishment of London Society, drove one Sunday 
with his sister, the Duchess of Oldenburg, to Westminster meeting¬ 
house. The Imperial visitors arrived in the midst of the worship, 
but they sat “ with great seriousness ” through the time remaining. 
Two days later William Allen, Stephen Grellet, and John Wilkinson 
waited on the Czar to present the address. A long conversation 
on religion and the principles of Friends ensued in which, records 
Stephen Grellet, “ we entered fully on the subject of our testimony 
against war, to which he fully assented.” The Czar, indeed, was 
all friendliness, urged the advantages of a Quaker settlement in 
Russia, promised such settlers full religious liberty and, in taking 
leave, remarked, “ I part from you as friends and brethren.” 3 

Three years later, when the Emperor planned the draining 
and reclamation of the swamps and waste land around St. Petersburg, 
he sought for an Englishman, if possible a Friend, to superintend 

x Mrs. Boyce, Records of a Quaker Family , p. 146. 

2 For these episodes, vide Meetingfor Sufferings , 6th mo. 1814; Life of William 
Allen, ii. 192 foi. $ Memoirs of Stephen Grellet , i. 241 fol. The Czar also ex¬ 
pressed a wish that “ crowned heads ” would settled their differences by arbi¬ 
tration rather than by the sword. Four years later at St. Petersburg he repeated 
this desire to Stephen Grellet, explaining that his longing that “ war and blood¬ 
shed might cease from the earth,” had led him to form the Holy Alliance. 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 


461 

the work. The post was given to Daniel Wheeler, who removed 
to Russia with his wife and family. For fourteen years the little 
group did useful work in agriculture, and enjoyed the full confidence 
of the Emperor. 1 

As a sect, they took no root in Russia, where many of their 
tenets and practices resembled those of other bodies of dissenters 
from the Orthodox Church. When Stephen Grellet and William 
Allen travelled in Russia in 1819 during their long “ religious visit ” 
to the Continent, they had dealings with many of these people, the 
German Mennonites, who had settled in Russia on Catherine the 
Second’s invitation, the Molokans or “ Spiritual Christians,” and 
the Doukhobors. The last-named, even at that date, the two Friends 
found vague in doctrine and unruly in practice. Grellet and Allen 
were warmly greeted by the Emperor, with whom they had meetings 
for prayer. Alexander seems to have had real and hearty esteem 
for both men. It was at this time that he offered William Allen 
the exclusive supply of drugs and medicines to the Russian Army, 
an offer which was, of course, declined. But Allen did not hesitate 
to use his friendship with the Emperor for the benefit of others. 
In 1822 he travelled to Vienna and Verona for the express purpose 
of influencing him, if possible, to take action at the Congress against 
the slave-trade, on behalf of religious toleration, and in favour of 
the unhappy Greeks. At Verona he found Wellington the most 
sympathetic of the delegates, and he did not leave the city until 
he knew that the slave-trade, at least, had been condemned. But 
his friend the Emperor had by this time fallen under the influence 

1 Daniel Wheeler as a youth had been a midshipman in the Navy, and then 
in 1792 enlisted as a private, serving first in Ireland and then in Hanover, where.he 
suffered great hardships. In 1795, on his regiment’s voyage to the West Indies, 
his whole character was changed by the experience of a terrific storm. He said 
later : “ I was at this time convinced of Friends’ principles, they being neither more 
nor less in my estimation, than pure Christianity. . . . No. human means were 
made use of; it was altogether the work of the Holy Spirit upon my heart.” 
Feeling that war was utterly unchristian he procured his discharge, and. returned 
home to find that his sister had married a Friend and joined the Society. He 
soon followed her example. After some years as a farmer and seed-merchant, 
he undertook the work in Russia, which he surrendered in 1832 for a long and 
arduous missionary visit to Australasia and the islands of the South Pacific. He 
died on a visit to New York in 1840. Thomas Dimsdale, a well-known eighteenth- 
century physician, was the son of a Quaker. He received large rewards, and the 
title of Baron of the Russian Empire for his services at various times in inoculating 
the Empress Catherine and other members of the Imperial House, including 
Alexander himself as a child. Dimsdale was not himself a Friend, but Alexander 
may have gained his first knowledge of the Society from him. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


462 

of Metternich and other reactionaries. The various revolutions, 
in Spain, Greece, and Naples against established but abominable 
Governments, filled him with horror, which blotted out the last 
remains of his earlier liberal principles. When Allen learned of the 
course of reaction and oppression, both at home and abroad, 
sanctioned by Alexander, he dispatched (April 29, 1823) a very 
plain-spoken letter of remonstrance. “ It is said that the Emperor 
of Russia, who had so publicly patronized the Societies in America 
and England for the promotion of universal peace, had now become 
the secret and open abettor of war.” But, continued Allen, the 
policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of another State, 
is the only one compatible with justice, for the peoples themselves 
are the best judges of their own interests. He added a strong plea 
for political and social reform . 1 This was a strange document to 
journey from a London tradesman to the Czar of all the Russias. 
It does not appear that any answer was returned. Later intercourse 
with Russia on the part of Friends (with the important exception 
of the Peace Mission in 1854) was mainly confined to persecuted 
sects, such as the Mennonites and Doukhobors, and to relief work 
in some of the great famines. 

In France, as has been remarked, the early Quaker missionaries 
produced little effect. Yet, curiously enough, the Society, during 
its first century of existence, received a good deal of notice from 
French writers on English characteristics or on contemporary 
religious phenomena . 2 

1 Life of William Allen , 'vide ii. 340. 

* M. Gustave Lanson in his critical edition of Voltaire’s Lettres Philo.sophiques 
gives a list of such works. Among them may be mentioned : Phil. Nand<§, 
Historie Abregte . . . de Kouaherisme, 1692 ; Henri Misson, Memoires et Observa¬ 
tions faites par un voyageur en Angleterre , La Haye, 1698 ; Le Sage, Remarques 
sur VAngleterre, Amsterdam, 1715, and P. Catrou, Histoire des Trembleurs , 1733. 
The works of Misson and Le Sage are in the British Museum Library ; from them 
a few obiter dicta may be quoted upon the Quakers : Misson, p. 359. “ Les 

Quaeres sont de grand Fanatique. II paroit en eux quelque chose de louable ; 
il semble qu’ils soient doux, simples a tous 6gards, sobres, modestes, paisibles! 
Us ont meme la reputation d’etre fiddles, et cela est souvent vrai. Mais il ne faut 
pas s’y tromper, car il y a souvent aussi bien du fard dans tout cet exterieur.” 
Le Sage, pp. 28-9. “ Ils font profession de ne point r&ister au mal. . . . Dans 

les carosses de voyages l’on les trouve de bonne humeur et pleins d’histoires plaisantes. 
... Ils refusent d’aller au guerre, mais l’on rapporte plusieurs exemples^de 
Capitaines des vaisseaux marchands de cette religion, que se font bienfdefendus 
contre les Corsaires.” Had Le Sage heard and misunderstood some version 
of Lurting’s exploit ? For the Quaker in the stage coach, cp. th ^Spectator, 
No. 132 (1711). 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 463 

These accounts are not always friendly, and very seldom accurate, 
since they often were based on the fantasies of Gerald Croese, but 
they have some importance from their share in awakening in Voltaire 
that interest in Quakers which led to his notable description of 
them. 

From 1725 to 1729 Voltaire was in practical exile in England, 
where he gathered materials for his Lettres sur les Anglais , in which 
he contrasted the intellectual, political, and social freedom of England 
with the evils of privilege and restriction in France. The treatment 
was superficial, but there was an undercurrent of serious argument. 
Lord Morley has well described how Voltaire’s imagination was 
struck by a sect which regarded Christianity as the religion of Christ. 
“It is impossible to say how much of the kindliness with which 
he speaks of them is due to real admiration of their simple, dignified 
and pacific life, and how much to a mischievous desire to make 
their praise a handle for the dispraise of overweening competitors. 
On the whole, there is a sincerity and heartiness of interest in his 
long account of this sect which persuades one that he was moved 
by a genuine sympathy with a religion that could enjoin the humane 
and peaceful and spiritual precepts of Christ, while putting away 
baptism, ceremonial communion, and hierophantic orders. . . . 
Above all, Voltaire, who was nowhere more veritably modern or 
better entitled to our veneration than by reason of his steadfast hatred 
of war, revered a sect so far removed from the brutality of the military 
regime as to hold peace for a first principle of the Christian faith 
and religious practice.” 1 

In later writings, the Dictionnaire Philosophique and his contribu¬ 
tions to the Encyclopedic , Voltaire again described the Quakers, 
but these Letters are his most elaborate treatment of the subject. 
An English translation was published in 1733, and the French 
original appeared (professedly against Voltaire’s wish) in 1734. 
During part of his stay in England he was the guest at Wandsworth 
of a rich London merchant, Edward Falkener. There he had English 
lessons from Edward Higginson, a young usher in a Quaker school 
in that suburb, who left a curious account of their intercourse, 
published a century later. For practice in English, Voltaire “ would 
translate the Apology of Robert Barclay, commending the same so 
far as to acknowledge it to be the finest or purest Church Latin 
he knew. In his translating his Epistle to King Charles II, instead 
1 Morley, Voltaire , pp. 82-5. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


464 

of using the word thou or thee he would write you, which made it 
to my ear seem harsh.” 1 

Voltaire studied the Apology to some effect, making extensive 
use of it in the Letters. Another Quaker acquaintance was Andrew 
Pitt of Hampstead, a London merchant, who corresponded with 
Voltaire on philosophical subjects, after his return to France. Pitt 
undoubtedly figures as the Quaker informant quoted by Voltaire 
in the Letters. The first four letters of the series describe the Quakers, 
and in the first there is an uncompromising statement of their 
attitude to war, largely borrowed from Barclay, though the passage 
here quoted is pure Voltaire. “ Our God . . . has no mind that 
we should cross the sea to cut the throats of our brothers, because 
murderers in red coats and hats two feet high enlist our fellow 
citizens, making a noise with two little sticks on a drum of ass’s skin. 
And when after victories won, all London blazes with illuminations, 
the sky is aflame with rockets and the air resounds with the din of 
thanksgiving, bells, organ, cannon, we mourn in silence over the 
murders that cause the public delight.” In the second letter are 
described with touches of flippancy the Quaker mode of worship, 
and the doctrine of immediate revelation. The third gives an account 
of Fox and the growth of the Society. Fox, says Voltaire, “ went 
from village to village, preaching against war and the clergy.” At 
Derby he was brought before the magistrates and when struck by 
a sergeant, turned the other cheek. He converted some soldiers, 
who quitted the army, for “ Cromwell had no use for a sect that 
did not fight.” These inaccuracies are perhaps due to a hasty study 
of Croese’s History. Letter Four is devoted to Penn and Pennsylvania. 
Incidentally, in a reference to Penn’s German travels, Voltaire 
explains the “ small harvest reaped from the seed sown in Germany ” 
by the suggestion that men who had constantly to use such terms 
as “ Highness ” and “ Excellency ” would not relish the Quaker 
tutoiement. The eloquent description of Penn’s dealings with the 
Indians is sufficiently well known. His government, says Voltaire, 
was a true Golden Age. “ A Government without priests, a people 
without weapons, citizens on an equality, and neighbours free from 
envy and suspicion.” 

1 Luke Howard, The Yorkshireman, i. 167-9 ( x 8 3 2-3), also Churton Collins, 
Voltaire ... in England , p. 15 (1908). Voltaire quoted Barclay’s dedication 
in the Letters, using, however, the singular pronoun. In a letter of later date 
he remarks on the Quaker practice, “ Le tu est le langage de la verit6 et le <vous 1 « 
langage du compliment” \CEwvres, edited by Moland, xxxiii. 378). 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 465 

Brissot, who visited Philadelphia fifty years later, unkindly 
declared that Voltaire would have been sadly bored in his ideal state. 
“ He would have yawned in their assemblies and been mortified 
to see his epigrams pass without applause.” 1 Though Voltaire came 
into contact with the Society at what is generally admitted to be 
a period of inertia and timidity, yet it made on him an impression 
of sincerity and idealism. At a later date he summed up his opinion 
of the Quakers in the Encyclopedic. 

“ Apres cela qu’on range tant qu’on voudra les Quakers parmi 
les fanatiques ; ce sont toujours des fanatiques bien estimables. 
Je ne puis m’emp£cher de declarer, que je les estime un peuple 
vraiment grand, vertueux, plein d’industrie, d’intelligence, et de 
sagesse. Ce sont des gens animes des principes les plus etendus 
de beneficence, qu’il y ait jamais eu sur la terre. . . . Enfin, c’est 
peut-£tre le seul parti chez les Chretiens, dont la pratique du corps 
entier reponde constamment a ses principes. Je n’ai point de honte 
d’avouer que j’ai lu et relu avec un plaisir singulier VApologie du 
Quakerisme par Robert Barclay ; il m’a convaincu que c’est, tout 
calculi, le systeme le plus raisonable et le plus parfait qu’on ait 
encore imaging.”* 

Many of the French intellectuals and reformers of the eighteenth 
century were strongly influenced by Voltaire’s enthusiasm. Monte¬ 
squieu and the Abb6 Raynal echoed his praises of Penn’s constitu- 
tion .3 Brissot de Warville, in his pre-Revolutionary days, in New 
Travels in America , 1783-9, gave a disproportionate space to the 
virtues of Friends, and particularly to their philanthropic work in 
Philadelphia. He also combated the slanders of other French travellers 
who visited America during the war, when Quakers were unpopular. 
But Brissot, while blaming their neutrality in the struggle, equally 
blames their persecutors. His account is another testimony to the 
general belief in the peace views of Friends. 

“ This people believe that example is more powerful than 
1 Brissot, New Travels (English translation), p. 265. 

* Some of Voltaire’s flippancies and inaccuracies did not pass uncorrected at 
he time. In 1741, Josiah Martin published A Letter from one of the people called 
Quakers to Francis de Voltaire, explaining that it had been sent to Voltaire in 
September 1733, after the publication of the English Letters, but that the French 
edition has since appeared without modification. Martin does not criticize the 
remarks on war. 

1 Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, Book IV ; Raynal, Histoire des Indes , 
Book XVIII. In this he speaks inaccurately of Pennsylvania as entirely 
undefended. 


30 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


466 

words ; that kings will always find the secret of perpetrating wars 
as long as they can hire men to murder each other, and that it is 
their duty as a Society, to resolve never to take arms or to contribute 
to the expenses of any war. They have been tormented, robbed, 
imprisoned, and martyred 5 they have suffered everything ; till 
tyranny itself, wearied with their perseverance, has exempted them 
from military service, and has been driven to indirect measures to 
force contributions from their hands.” 1 2 3 

In a second edition (1790) Brissot added a curious postscript 
comparing the principles of Friends with those of the Revolutionists. 
The only difference he can find is that while both love liberty, the 
French fight for it. “ But notwithstanding this ardour in the French 
to arm themselves in so holy a cause, they do not less respect the 
religious opinions of the Quakers, which forbid them to spill the 
blood of their enemies. This error of theirs is so charming that it 
is almost as good as a truth. We are all striving for the same object— 
universal fraternity ; the Quakers by gentleness, we by resistance. 
Their means are those of a society, ours those of a powerful nation.” 2 
Three years later, when Brissot died by the guillotine, he found 
that French “ ardour ” was not the most direct road to universal 
brotherhood. 

During his brief period of power, he had been able to give some 
help to the Quakers in France. For, before the close of the nineteenth 
century, there were two Quaker groups in that country. One was 
a band of temporary immigrants. William Rotch of Nantucket, 
whose troubles during the War of Independence have already been 
related ,3 migrated with other members of his family to Dunkirk 
in 1785, to carry on thence the whaling business, which had been 
ruined in Nantucket by British restrictions. From 1790 to 1793 
he was himself in residence at Dunkirk. Before settling there he 
had applied to the Government for “ a full and free enjoyment of 
our religion according to the principles of the people called Quakers, 
and an entire exemption from military requisitions of every kind.” 
Both requests were granted, the latter on the express ground that 
the immigrants were “a peaceable people, and meddle not with 

1 New Travels (English edition 1794), p. 354. He is severe on the Marquis 
de Chastellux who had published Travels in North America in 1780. 

2 New Travels, p. 360. 

3 Vide Chapter XV. The references there given are also the sources of the 
following account. 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 467 

the quarrels of princes, neither internal nor external.” After the 
outbreak of war in 179 2 the Dunkirk authorities became alarmed 
for the safety of the Quakers, who steadily refused to illuminate 
for the reported victories over Austria. At last the Mayor remarked : 
“ Your houses are your own : the streets are ours,” and arranged 
an ingenious framework of lamps in front of his own house and 
that of each Quaker. The Dunkirkers admired the new style in 
illumination, and the Rotch family was unmolested. When some 
malicious person complained to some Commissioners from Paris, 
visiting the town on public business, of the Quaker pecularities, 
they received the reply that the French Government was being 
established on the principles of Pennsylvania and it would be 
unfitting to persecute Quakers. The argument must have been 
supplied by Brissot. 

In 179 1 William Rotch and his son Benjamin appeared with 
Jean de Marsillac before the National Assembly in support of the 
petition of the French Quakers of Cong&iies for the recognition 
of their worship and for exemption from the oath of loyalty to the 
Republic and from military service. Brissot and other Girondins 
sympathized with them, assisting them in the presentation of their 
case. The petition was read before a full house on February io, 
1791. 1 It reminded the Assembly that France had recently set an 
example to the world by an edict of universal toleration. “ One of 
our principles has drawn down on us severe persecution, but Provi¬ 
dence has enabled us to overcome them without recourse to violence. 
It is the principle which forbids us to take up arms to kill man on 
any pretext. This harmonizes with the holy Scriptures in which 
Christ has said : Do not render evil for evil, but do good to all men.” 
The French have recognized this doctrine of universal brotherhood 
in their oath never to undertake a war of conquest. “ This course 
will lead you and the whole world towards universal peace. Do not 
then look askance on men who by their example are hastening this 
peace.” Pennsylvania had shown that their policy is practical, and 
their scruples had been tolerated in England and the United States. 

Mirabeau, as President of the Assembly, made a friendly reply. 
The various religious privileges asked for were granted. As for 
non-resistance, it was “ un beau principe philosophique,” but 
impracticable. In Pennsylvania (according to Mirabeau) the Quakers 
were “ eloignes des sauvages,” but if put to the test, they would 

* Petition a VAssembtie Rationale in D. Tracts, vol. ccxii, No. 18. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


468 

have fought in defence of their wives and children. He ended : 
“ Si jamais je recontre un Quaker, je lui dirai. Mon frere, si tu 
as le droit d’etre libre tu as le droit d’empScher qu’on te fasse 
esclave. Puisque tu aimes ton semblable, ne le laisse pas 6gorger 
par la tyrannie. Ce feroit le tuer toi-m&me.” 

The French Friends, who were the promoters of the petition, 
had existed for about a century as a body quite independent of the 
Society in England, to whom they had only just become known. 
After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Protestants 
in the South of France, when they did not escape to England and 
America, for the most part adopted a policy of desperate resistance 
to persecution. The mutual cruelties of the Catholic soldiers and 
the “ Camisards ” of the Cevennes form a bloody page in history. 
Yet among these Protestants a small body arose, or had survived 
from Waldensian times, which believed that earthly weapons were 
unlawful in a spiritual cause and that ecclesiastical ordinances were 
a hindrance to spiritual life. Their origin is obscure ; according 
to some they were at first led by one of the “ prophetesses,” who 
were a feature of the Camisard movement. Others again point to 
a stirring letter attributed to a “ prophet,” Daniel Raoul, who wrote 
it, while awaiting execution, to protest against the use of the sword 
in answer to persecution. Probably the parents of Antony Benezet, 
before they fled from Franee, belonged to this sect which met secretly 
at Fontanes and neighbouring villages. In 1769 Paul Codognan 
of Congenies, a member, visited Holland. Here he learnt of the 
existence of the English Friends, and proceeded to London. His 
English was scanty, and though he became acquainted with Friends, 
it does not seem that they realized his position as a member of a 
kindred body. However, he was welcomed as a sympathizer, attended 
Yearly Meeting, and returned to Congenies, bringing with him 
French copies of two works by Penn, No Cross , No Crown , and 
The Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers . 

A few years later the little community received an important 
accession. Jean de Marsillac, a young officer, first heard of Quakers 
from a colleague who had served in the United States. After a 
study of Barclay’s Apology and the article upon the sect in the 
Encyclopedie , he resigned his commission. This was in 1777 ; in 
1783 he settled with the Friends at Congenies. 1 Next year another 

1 For Marsillac’s later history, vide J.F.H.S ., vols. xv, xvi, xviii. He became 
a physician, migrated to Philadelphia in 1795, an( f was admitted to member¬ 
ship by Friends there. But in 1797, the shock of a serious carriage accident, 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 


469 

turn of the wheel brought them again into contact with English 
Friends. During the war with America and France two Cornish 
packets, part owned by Dr. Joseph Fox, of Fowey, were fitted 
out as privateers and took some French ships as prizes in the 
Channel. The Doctor did not refuse his share of the prize, but 
invested it for the benefit of the original owners. As soon as the 
war ended, his son, Edward Long Fox, went to Paris to advertise 
for these owners in the official Gazette. But he met with an un¬ 
expected hindrance. The Comte de Vergennes, then Foreign 
Minister, could not believe that such an object was genuine, and 
was with difficulty persuaded to allow the advertisement to appear. 
In all £1,500 was refunded, before the war with France put a stop 
to intercourse. After the Peace of 1815 the balance of £600 was 
invested for the benefit of disabled seamen in the French mercantile 
marine. 

The Quaker mission made some stir in France. It came 
to the notice of the Cong6nies “ Quakers,” from whom, in April 
1785, young Fox received a letter of greeting. Thus communication 
was established. Marsillac visited England with an address signed 
by forty-five of his fellow members explaining their position. In 
1788 they were visited by English and American Friends, who did 
much to help their organization into a religious body, although 
they insisted on details of “ plainness ” in dress and manner uncon¬ 
genial to the French mind. 1 But the advice, support, and financial 
help of the English Society were of great value. In 1787-8 the 
French body negotiated with Vergennes, Louis’ minister, for 
inclusion among the Protestants, to whom it was proposed to grant 
civil rights. 

During the Revolution the majority stood firm in refusal to 
comply with the law of 1792 concerning the National Guard, 
and they were allowed to escape service. The war with England 
next year cut off all personal intercourse, though there was frequent 

in which his companion was killed, seems to have caused in him a reaction from 
Quakerism. He returned to France, where he adopted fashionable dress and 
pursued the ordinary amusements of society. He is said to have served as a doctor 
under Napoleon, but our only further information comes from an affectionate letter 
he sent in 1815 to an English Friend. At that time he had held high office in 
Paris hospitals. 

1 The French Quakers printed their first Precis des regies de discipline 
Chretienne in 1785 (D. Tracts, 214.10). A summary of Friends’ history and 
teaching was translated in 1790 (D. Tracts, 212.15). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


470 

correspondence. 1 Stephen Grellet, as an American, in spite of diffi¬ 
culties and dangers, was able to visit them twice, in 1807 and 1811, 
to their great help and comfort. He grieved for them and for his 
native France under the crushing burden of conscription, and tried 
in vain to reach and plead with Napoleon himself. The Quakers 
were in a hard case. One of the first communications they received 
from England in 1815 was a censure upon those who had taken 
up arms. To this the French Friends replied with some spirit that 
those who yielded rather deserved compassion ; they were for the 
most part dragged from their homes by force. “ Yet not one of our 
members has to blush for having done violence to any. We think 
ourselves happy in having never been concerned in any plot, in having 
never been engaged in any action where blood was spilt.” 3 But 
the hard pressure of the law gradually drove the majority of young 
men into emigration. Those who remained either suffered periodic 
imprisonment or were forced to hire substitutes at exorbitant rates. 
The list of membership in 1822 showed two hundred names, of whom 
ninety belonged to the Congenies Meeting and the remainder to 
Nimes, Fontanes, and St. Gilles. But the numbers gradually dwindled. 
In the war of 1870 the Friends took no part. One member, Jean 
Benezet, underwent severe trials for his refusal to train as a National 
Guard, but they felt (as they reported to English Friends) that they 
had not been faithful in bearing their testimony against war “ with 
sufficient publicity .”3 Under the Third Empire the prevailing 
corruption had led to laxity in the enforcement of service, but now 
the pressure was renewed, and was followed by renewed emigration. 
At Congenies two elderly women are the last survivors of these 
French “Friends.” 

The story of Friends in Germany has some points of resemblance 
to that of their brethren in Franee. The old German Meetings died 
out early in the eighteenth century, but in 1790 English and 
American Friends visited many towns, holding meetings with groups 

* For fuller details of these French Friends vide C. Tylor, The Camisards , 
pp. 431 foil. ; Jaulmes, Les Quakers Frangais ; The Friend , 1848, p. 51 etc. ; also 
MS. correspondence with Congenies in a collection of Casual Correspondence 
m D. After 1817 the Reports of the Continental Committee of the Meeting for 
Sufferings contain information ; the first French “ Discipline ” was adopted at 
Congenies in 1785. r 

3 Casual Correspondence , 1815. 

3 Friend , 1870, p. 264 ; Proceedings of Yearly Meeting , 1872, p. 36 (Report 
of Continental Committee). For the present position in France, vide p. 499. 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 471 

of religiously minded persons. 1 At Minden, a garrison town, the 
capital of Westphalia, and at Pyrmont, a health resort in Waldeck, 
these groups were found ready to accept the general principles and 
practice of Friends.* In 1794-5 John Pemberton, one of the three 
Philadelphia brothers, paid a similar visit to Germany. But the 
hardships of travel told heavily on a man of sixty-seven. After some 
weeks of earnest service at Pyrmont, he died there, leaving on the 
newly formed Meeting a deep impression of self-sacrifice and 
devotion. 

The Meetings were organized and Meeting-houses built, at the 
suggestion and with the financial help of English Friends though, 
during the war, visits could only be made by Americans. Waldeck 
was a small independent principality ; its ruler was friendly, and the 
Pyrmont Meeting enjoyed toleration from the outset. Minden, 
which was in the Prussian jurisdiction, fared very differently. Friends 
there soon came into collision with the authorities. From 1798 to 
1800 their Meeting-house was sealed up by order of the Government, 
because of objection taken to addresses delivered there by visiting 
American Friends. 3 In 1799 a deputation of Minden and Pyrmont 
Friends appealed to the King himself on behalf of the former 
Meeting. The King replied (June 2, 1799) : 

“ His royal majesty the King of Prussia holds sacred the 
liberty of conscience in matters of faith of all his subjects. But civil 
institutions, and especially the fulfilment of those civil duties without 
which were the dispensation general, the State itself could not exist, 
have nothing in common with this. No religious sect like that of 
the Quakers, whose confession of faith excludes its followers from 
the most important civil duties in an independent State, can therefore 

1 They were Robert and Sarah Grubb of England, and George and Sarah 
Dillwyn of America. They had already visited Congenies. For Pyrmont and 
Minden Friends, see Proceedings of Yearly Meeting 1868 (Historical Account of 
Friends in Germany), pp. 80 foil. Also articles in The Friend , 1845-6, taken 
from an account by F. Schmidt, a Minden Friend, written in 1823. 

* The summary of Friends’ History and Teaching translated for the French 
Quakers in 1790, was translated into German in 1792. 

3 A curious later parallel may be quoted : “ A good many years ago ” 
Professor Vinogradoff visited a settlement of Old Ritualists in Moscow. After 
a service in the outer chapel, “ we were conducted towards the inner chapel of the 
altar. It was closed and seals were affixed to the gates : they were seals of different 
Public Departments put on because the Government, though tolerating ordinary 
functions in the Church, did not allow the Old Ritualists to celebrate High Mass for 
fear of their making converts among the adherents of the Established Church ” 
Vinogradoff, Self-Government in Russia , 1915, p. 13). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


47 2 

lay claim to the right of the public exercise of their religion. Even 
to tolerate them is a favour which must not be extended too far, 
lest the State should suffer by it. . . 

Thus he confirmed the decision of the Minden authorities. 
In February 1800 the Friends made a fresh appeal, by which they 
obtained a partial measure of toleration for the six families then 
composing the Meeting. This was granted by a royal decree 
(February 23, 1800) which gave them freedom of worship, the use 
of their form of marriage, exemption from oaths, and permission 
to educate their children, while “ on their refusal to comply with 
civil regulations in essential points ” (i.e. military service) their 
fines should be levied by legal process of distraint. These favours 
were shown on the express ground that the Friends “have not 
increased since the year 1790.” They were forbidden to marry 
members of other sects or to acquire landed property. Finally, they 
were warned that, “ they shall on the first admission of a new member 
be deprived of the toleration now granted to them. That such member, 
if a stranger shall, without any indulgence, be immediately passed 
beyond our frontiers, or, if our subject, be compelled by the 
successive steps of legal coercion, to submit to our civil order.” 

In 1801 the Friends were again solemnly warned against making 
proselytes, but defended themselves courageously before the Minden 
court, declaring that their meetings were open to all and that they 
had nothing to conceal. In practice the Edict was so interpreted 
that, while the original Friends were not deprived of toleration on 
the accession of new members, these latter did not share in any of 
the exemptions granted by the decree. During the fifteen years 
of war which followed, the Meeting suffered more from the weakness 
of its own members than from outside interference. But, though 
some at this time entered military service, the majority established 
their claim to exemption, with the result that in December 1813 
(after the “ War of Liberation ”) a Royal Cabinet Order exempted 
Friends, Mennonites, and Anabaptists, on payment of a contribution 
to military requirements, from all forms of military service, because 
such service was against their religious principles. In 1814 the Friends 
paid the contribution not (so they ingenuously explained afterwards) 
as a contribution towards the war, but as a token of gratitude for 
the toleration they had of late enjoyed. This year a visit from Stephen 
Grellet brough fresh power and courage to Minden Friends, while 
the intercourse of Frederick William with Allen and Grellet in 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 473 

London may have had its effect in preserving them at first from the 
operation of a new law of universal military service, beyond the 
levying by distraints of the usual fines, amounting to three per cent, 
of the Friends’ income. 

In 1817 the Meeting for Sufferings appointed a standing Conti¬ 
nental committee to correspond with Friends abroad. This com¬ 
mittee soon found work to do on behalf of Minden Friends. From 
1818 onwards Christian Peitsmeyer of Eidinghausen, near Minden, 
was summoned each year to military service. A memorial sent by 
the Meeting for Sufferings to the King of Prussia in January 1826 
describes what followed. 

“ On being called upon to serve as a soldier, he could not, from 
a conscientious scruple against all war, comply with the requisition ; 
whereupon he was stripped, and beaten with swords and sticks, 
he was then kicked, and when he could not stand any longer, he was 
tied to a stake and again cruelly treated.” 

The Friends at Minden protested to the Government, quoting 
the exemption order of 1813. To this the Government replied 
that the order had applied only to the existing war, and that now 
“Separatists” would be compelled to serve. In 1822 came the 
turn of his brother Ernst. He (said the memorial) “ was called 
up and as he informed the court he could not without violence to his 
conscience take the military oath and bear arms, he was committed 
to prison for six weeks : at length a process of confiscation of 
property was instituted against him, but he was freed from this by 
the first court of magistrate, and not considered as contumacious ; 
because the law applied only to those who left their country on 
refusing to bear arms, and not to one who refused on Christian 
principle. But the fiscal officer of the regiment appealed against the 
decision, and the second court reversed it, and condemned him 
to the loss of all his little property, as well as his right of inheritance, 
and has disqualified him from conducting any business ; the court 
considering him of the same class with those who leave the country.” 

Thomas Shillitoe and Thomas Christy, who were then visiting 
Germany, appealed to the King for protection, reminding him 
that he had once declared conscience to be a sacred thing, to which 
he replied : “ It is so, and the young man shall not suffer.” He 
intervened to secure the remission of the sentence. 1 In some 
neighbouring villages there were by this time small groups of Friends 
1 Journal of Thomas Shillitoe, ii. 23-40. 


474 FRIENDS ABROAD 

in connection with the Minden meeting. One of these, Eiding- 
hausen, was the home of the Peitsmeyers, and of another young man, 
Henry Schmidt, described in the memorial as an “ adherent,” though 
not an actual member. In 1825 he became liable to service, and, 
on his refusal, arrested. He was then, the memorial asserted, 
“ stripped of his clothes and dressed in military garments, arms 
were bound upon his back, and he was led to the place of exercise ; 
but, as he still did not comply, he was again committed to prison 
and kept for three days and three nights in succession upon the laths 
(Latten), and this dreadful punishment was, it appears, repeated 
at different times, nothing being given him for his sustenance but 
a piece of bread and a bottle of water. 1 * A representation was then 
made on his behalf to the Major, whereupon he was on the following 
day released from this part of his punishment, and after four weeks’ 
imprisonment, he was set at liberty, with a warning that, if he 
persisted, the process of confiscation would be instituted against 
him.” 

Three English Friends (Thomas Christy, George Stacey, and 
Samuel Gurney) personally approached the King with this memorial. 
He at once condemned the action of the military authorities as 
contrary to law and in opposition to the royal views,” but said 
that the cases must be left to the decision of the Privy Supreme 
Tribunal (the highest court of appeal). He also directed that “ the 
legal rights of Quakers at present residing in his dominions or who 
may at any future time settle therein, in particular reference to 
their connection with the State shall be more closely investigated 
and established and the result speedily made known to them.” 3 

The result was not unduly favourable to Friends : although 
there were few cases of gross brutality in later times, the policy of 
imprisonment, fines, or restriction of civil rights continued for all 
except members of the six privileged families. Yet “difficulties 
fostered rather than checked religious zeal ”3 Between 1814 and 
1840 eighteen Friends had joined the Minden Meeting, while the 

1 The Latten was a cage or cell, floored with triangular planks of oak, sharp 
edge uppermost, into which the prisoner was put naked and barefoot, so that he 
could neither stand nor lie with comfort. According to an editorial note to 
Frederick Schmidt s Account of Minden Friends , this punishment was introduced 
to the garrison at Minden by Napoleon, when he made the town capital of his new 
kingdom of Westphalia {Friend, 1846, p. 88). 

1 Account of Meeting for Sufferings. 

3 Proceedings of Yearly Meeting , 1868 (History of Friends in Germany). 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 


475 


more secure body at Pyrmont could only report five. On the other 
hand, the steady pressure of the conscription law drove the majority 
of the young men and some whole families to emigration. In 1839 
the history of Danzig was repeated. The Minden Meeting suggested 
a complete emigration, and the London Friends dissuaded them. 
But piecemeal emigration continued ; children were sent to school 
in England, sometimes by the generosity of English Friends, or later 
at their parents’ expense, as the German Friends prospered in trade. 
Some of these children settled in England and America ; 1 * a few, 
on their return to Germany, undertook military service and were 
disowned. After the establishment of the Empire the same influences 
were in force at Pyrmont. Yet it is remarkable that in several instances 
the poorer Friends, who could not escape, were treated with considera¬ 
tion. The authorities tried to avoid conflict with the conscientious 
objector by dismissing him on various pretexts, generally that of 
health. 3 On one occasion a young Friend from Obernkirchen, near 
Minden, was put back into a lower age group, and when he came 
back at the appointed time the officers in dismay asked : “ Why had 
he come ?—they would not have sent for him.” 

Before 1870 the Pyrmont Friends were reduced to a mere 
handful, but the Minden Meeting continued, in gradually decreasing 
numbers, until very recent times. 

The last body, or rather bodies, of Friends to be noticed are 
those in Norway and Denmark. These Scandinavian Friends had 
an interesting origin .3 During the early eighteenth century a Danish 
pastor, Christopher Meidel, was engaged at the Lutheran Mission 
to Sailors in London. Here he studied the writings of Friends, and 
before 1705 had joined the Society, for whose principles he suffered 
imprisonment at Chelmsford, and later in Denmark. Translations 
of various Friends’ works into Danish were made by him for the 
Society. When in the next century Denmark became involved 
in the Continental war a considerable number of Danes and 
Norwegians serving in her Navy were captured by England and 


1 One of these, Benjamin Seebohm, became a leading minister among Friends. 

3 Proceedings of Yearly Meeting 1870 (Report of Continental Committee, 
p. 33). Vide p. 499 for recent work in Germany. 

3 Fide George Richardson, Rise and Progress of the Society of Friends in 
Norway 1849, and also Proceedings of Yearly Meeting , 1887, p. 72 (Report of the 
Continental Committee). At that time the number of Norwegians in actual 
membership was about 150, and of Danes, 90. The numbers had been larger, 
but were constantly reduced by emigration. 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


476 

imprisoned on ships of war in the Medway. Friends were active 
in sending tracts and religious works in various languages to the 
prisoners of war. In 1814 one of these, MeideFs translation of 
Barclay’s Apology , fell into the hands of a young Norwegian who, 
with some of his friends, had already begun to worship together 
in captivity much after the manner of a Friends’ meeting. Finding 
that a religious Society already existed, and that some were living 
at Rochester, he wrote to them with the help of an English dictionary. 
Rochester Friends visited the little group, held meetings with them, 
and instructed them in doctrine until the peace, when some thirty 
Norwegian and Danish Friends returned home. Frequent visits 
were paid to those in Norway by English Friends, but until the year 
1845 they suffered severely both for worshipping apart from the 
State Church and for refusal of military service. In 1845, after 
an appeal from the Meeting for Sufferings, the Norwegian Storthing 
passed a fairly liberal measure of religious toleration. This, however, 
did not secure any exemption from military service, as the Norwegian 
law did not recognize the conscientious objector. 

In Denmark the returned prisoners of war did not keep up 
their connection with Friends. About the year 1866 a small body 
of persons in sympathy with Friends arose who soon were acknow¬ 
ledged as members of the Society. This branch of Friends was 
organized after visits from English Friends in 1877, and has been 
maintained up to the present day, in the face of many difficulties, 
not least of which is the law of compulsory service. Both in Norway 
and Denmark, throughout the nineteenth century, young men 
Friends suffered repeated terms of imprisonment on this account, 
in spite of remonstrances by their own body and appeals from the 
Meeting for Sufferings. There were frequent emigrations to 
America, and in the West, Iowa for example, there are some meetings 
composed wholly of Scandinavian Friends. In 1901 an attempt 
was made in Norway to arrange alternative service in civil occupa¬ 
tions for Friends and others with a religious objection to war, and 
a few years later the same question arose in Denmark. Apparently, 
in both cases, non-combatant military work would have been granted 
to Friends as Friends, but they desired that the alternative employ¬ 
ment should be civilian, and that the conscientious objectors outside 
their own body, who were also making a stand against the law, should 
be recognised. 

In Norway the majority of the Friends are settled round 


FRIENDS IN EUROPE 


477 

Stavanger. In Denmark they are scattered, and in no one place is 
there a group sufficiently large to require a meeting-house. But 
quite recently there has been an addition of several new members. 

From the foregoing account it will be evident that on the 
Continent of Europe, even in a Protestant environment, Friends 
have held no secure place. No doubt the foundation of Pennsylvania 
had much to do with the emigration of the earlier bodies, many 
of them impelled by persecution at home. But in the nineteenth 
century the operation of conscription has been clearly one of the 
main causes of decay. The young life of these small Meetings was 
forced to choose between change of country and change of creed— 
or, at least, of practice. Had these Friends possessed the immense 
enthusiasm and devotion of the early Quaker preachers they might 
have gathered a band of adherents with whom even Governments 
would have had to reckon. But they had not the same missionary 
spirit, nor, indeed, was the world around them as ready to receive 
the message as seventeenth-century England and America. The 
growth of the modern missionary movement among English and 
American Friends dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Its story has been told recently in a volume written to commemorate 
the fiftieth anniversary of the Friends’ Foreign Mission Association. 1 

At the present time English Friends have mission fields in India, 
Madagascar, Syria, China, Pemba, and Constantinople, though the 
last is not actually under the Friends’ Foreign Mission Association. 
During the war the Syrian missionaries were forced to suspend their 
work, but while on furlough some devoted themselves to the care 
of refugee Armenians in Egypt. Both in China and India, Friends 
have found that the war between Christian nations is a source of 
great perplexity to the converts, and even to non-Christians, who 
have some idea of the teachings of the New Testament. The position 
of Friends in regard to war is better understood than that of other 
missionaries. 

An American Friend who travelled on peace work in Europe 
during 1915 found both in neutral and enemy countries friendliness 
towards Quakers. In Russia, memories remained of the Peace 
Deputation of 1854, and of famine relief work ; in Holland it was 
taken “as a matter of course” that English Friends should come 
over to help the Belgian refugees. 

“ But by far the warmest understanding for Friends was expressed 

* Friends Beyond Seas , by Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin (Headley Bros., 1916). 


FRIENDS ABROAD 


478 

by the Grand Duchess Luise of Baden, aunt of Kaiser William II, 
who has been acquainted for years with members of the Society. 
In a recent interview she compared the Society of Friends to the 
sower in the parable, and she laid stress on the fact that the sower 
had the courage to go forth and sow his seed ; and thus it is the duty 
of the comparatively small group of Friends to keep sowing the seeds 
of their views as to the settlement of international difficulties. . . . 
In every country ” (added the writer) “ and in nearly every interview 
my being a Friend, or a Quaker, as they usually say, was a source 
of added hospitality and of helpfulness in my work.” 1 In the next 
chapter it will be shown how the recent work of Friends has led to 
a new growth of Quakerism at several centres on the Continent. 

1 Dr. Benjamin F. Battin of Swarthmore College in the Friends* Intelligencer 
(American), 1915, p. 807. 


PART VI 


CONCLUSION 



















CHAPTER XVIII 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 


If, as seems most probable, the coming struggle between the forces of the 
world and the living spirit of Christ centres round the use or disuse of the 
anarchic barbarism of war as a fundamental institution of Christendom, 
then undoubtedly a time of suffering lies ahead for those who take their 
stand with the Prince of Peace on behalf of the Kingdom which calls for 
more courage, more divine and wholehearted devotion than any soldiering 
of man’s creation. It is well to count the cost before the battle joins. All 
men will certainly cease to speak well of us; trade relationships may be 
crippled ; children may be disqualified from some auspicious career. On 
the other hand, if we give way before the storm and our witness perish, 
no doubt deliverance will still come to humanity in another way and from 
another place, but who knoweth whether we are not come to the Kingdom 
for such a time as this ? ”— Joshua Rowntree, Brute Force versus Brother- 
hood, 1913. 

The events of the last quarter of a century in the history both of 
the little Society of Friends and the great world are still too near 
to us to allow either a detailed or an impartial description. The 
present chapter can be nothing more than a summary. 

The Yearly Meeting of 1900 uttered emphatic condemnation 
(quoted in an earlier chapter) of the war in South Africa under the 
shadow of which the nineteenth century ended and the twentieth 
began. Many Friends, in common with other Englishmen, had 
watched with anxiety the growth of friction and distrust between 
the Government of the Transvaal, on the one side and, on the 
other, the British settlers on the Rand and their sympathizers in 
our South African colonies. While the negotiations in the autumn 
of 1899 were proceeding, the Meeting for Sufferings addressed 
the English Government, expressing a fervent hope for a peaceful 
termination War (on an ultimatum from President Kruger) broke 
out in October 1899. Public opinion here was by no means united 

3 1 481 


CONCLUSION 


482 

on the justice and inevitability of the war, especially when it developed 
into an undisguised war of conquest. The Labour Party and an 
important minority of the Liberal Party (including its official leader, 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. John Morley (now Viscount), 
and Robert Spence Watson (President of the National Liberal 
Federation) were keenly critical of the management of the 
negotiations, of certain harsh features in the conduct of the war 
itself, and especially of the policy of “ unconditional surrender.” 
Friends, as a whole, may be said to have ranged themselves on this 
side. What division of opinion there was mainly followed political 
lines. Since the rise of the Home Rule problem some members, 
few in numbers, but important from their wealth and influence, had 
become Unionists. Several of these, as was natural, gradually and 
almost unconsciously adopted the general views of the party to 
which they had become attached. These Friends, while deploring 
the war, considered that the Government were justified in under¬ 
taking it, and even that the prospect of better government in South 
Africa and better treatment of the natives should induce the Society 
to consider this war an exception to the rule expressed in the Eighth 
Query. One or two among them contributed letters on these lines 
to the Friend and the British Friend , but they did not press their 
views in the gatherings of the Society, and they certainly did not 
represent its general opinion. 

On the other hand, Friends took a large share in the work of 
the “ South African Conciliation Committees ” formed in many 
centres to bring about an understanding between the contending 
races, and, like their fellow-workers, received the title of “ pro- 
Boer ” from the Jingo Press. At several meetings there was a good 
deal of mob violence, notably at Birmingham, where Mr. Lloyd 
George had to escape in disguise from the Town Hall. One of the 
worst instances was at Scarborough. The Rowntree family there 
had been Quakers from the first days of the Society. Joshua Rowntree, 
a solicitor and once Liberal member for the borough, was Chairman 
of the local Conciliation Committee, which in March 1900 arranged 
a private meeting for Mr. Cronwright-Schreiner of Cape Colony, 
who was visiting England in the interests of peace. The building 
was soon surrounded by an angry crowd, and on the advice of the 
Chief Constable the guests dispersed, finding both difficulty and 
danger in reaching their homes. For some hours that night the 
town was in the hands of the mob, who attacked the homes and 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 483 

business establishments of members of the committee, smashing 
windows and doing much damage. 

This riot figured prominently in a debate in the House of 
Commons (March 15) on these disturbances. What had been done 
at Scarborough found few defenders, though the Premier (Mr. 
Balfour) declared that “those who call these meetings should be 
careful lest they ask more of human nature than all history shows 
that human nature is capable of bearing.” It was replied that in 
many cases, as at Scarborough, these were private gatherings for 
intercourse and information, and did not involve a public 
demonstration. 

On behalf of those who had suffered loss Joshua Rowntree 
sent a letter to the Press : “ It is our desire that the sores arising 
from the recent visit of Mr. Cronwright-Schreiner to Scarborough 
may speedily be healed. As one contribution to this end, we wish 
to state that it is not our intention to make any claim against the 
Borough Fund for property damaged or destroyed during the riot 
which occurred on the night of the ‘ Reception.’ 1 . . . We respect¬ 
fully submit to our fellow townsmen of all creeds and parties, that 
the wrecking of buildings, and especially midnight assaults on the 
homes of women, children, and aged persons, are acts of cruel 
lawlessness which nothing can justify. . . . We are all at one 
in desiring the honour and greatness of our country ; we are intensely 
anxious for the good name of the British Empire amongst the nations 
of the earth. But we hold that the fostering of prejudice and enmity, 
even against our foes, is in the long run hurtful to ourselves, and 
that injustice to strangers never leads to justice to our own 
people. 

“ Our convictions on some great questions are, we know, different 
from those of the majority of our fellow countrymen ; but for 
these convictions we must render our account, not to men but 
to God. 

“ If we are wrong, resort to lynch law will not set us right, while 
it inflicts serious injury on the whole community.” 

This statement was received with respect and appreciation, even 
from men whose views on the war differed widely from those of 
the writer and signatories. The late Alfred Lyttelton, soon to be 

1 Sir Edward Carson, whose opinion had been taken, considered that 
they were clearly entitled to an indemnity out of the Borough Fund for the damage 
sustained. 


484 CONCLUSION 

Colonial Secretary in the “ Khaki Government,” said of it : “ That 
was real Christianity, and must do a great deal of good.” 1 

The official bodies of the Society did what in them lay to combat 
the war spirit. Early in 1900 the Meeting for Sufferings re-issued 
with necessary alterations the “ Christian Appeal ... on the 
Present War” of Crimean days. Of this 200,000 copies were 
circulated. Dissatisfied with the expedient of re-publishing an 
old document, the Yearly Meeting in May issued another on 
“ Christianity and War,” from which a few sentences may be quoted : 

“Acquiescence in the action of the nation, whether right or 
wrong, is commonly regarded as the only true patriotism. ... It 
is not the soldier’s heroism, but the work in which he is engaged 
that we believe to be repugnant to the teaching and life of Christ. 
. . . Our position with respect to peace cannot be isolated without 
loss from the rest of our faith. . . . Our witness is not narrow 
and negative, but far-reaching in its scope and intensely positive 
in the active service for Christ’s peaceable Kingdom to which it 
calls us.” 

The methods adopted to bring the war to a speedy close shocked 
many Englishmen. The Society of Friends was among the first 
to protest ; in December 1900 it presented to the Government a 
memorial against farm-burning, which appeared in The Times and 
elsewhere. These methods of warfare intensified the sufferings of 
the Boer women and children. It is easy to issue documents, and 
bodies of Friends are sometimes too prolific of the written and printed 
word, but, at least, they are also ready to act as living epistles of 
help and good-will to those who suffer. Throughout the war money 
was collected for its victims, and women Friends worked diligently 
to make and collect garments for the destitute. Through this relief 
fund Joshua Rowntree did further service for South Africa. His 
brother-in-law, John Edward Ellis, a Friend and Member of 
Parliament, was greatly disturbed by reports of the operation of 
martial law in Cape Colony and the conquered territory ; also, 
in common with many other Friends, he was anxious to find out 
how material aid could be given to the sufferers from the war. 

1 Life of Joshua Rowntree, by S. E. Robson, is the source for most of the above 
details. The book also tells (p. 114) that a workman “ who holds widely differing 
political vieftrs from the Rowntrees, but who is now a strong peace advocate . . . 
dates his adherence to the cause from that night. * It was what made me first think 
about peace.’ ” 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 485 

At his request, and with the hearty approval of the Meeting for 
Sufferings, Joshua and Isabella Rowntree, with their nephew, 
Harold Ellis, sailed to South Africa on this mission. The journey 
was one of difficulty and hardship, and on their arrival the travellers 
were only allowed to visit the concentration camps in Cape Colony 
and Natal. Conditions there were sad enough. The camps had 
in their origin been an attempt by the military authorities to provide 
shelter for the women and children taken prisoner, especially those 
whose homes had been destroyed by the farm-burning policy. But 
little care had been taken to provide against the inevitable dangers 
of herding together a miscellaneous congeries of people. 

“ The sight of the women and children, crowded into hurriedly 
prepared huts or tents, surrounded by fences of barbed wire, often 
with barely sufficient food—their homes destroyed and their goods 
confiscated, their children dying at an average rate of 271 per 1,000 
—burnt itself into Joshua Rowntree’s heart.” 1 

His description of the conditions in these camps confirmed the 
independent report of Miss Hobhouse. It was effectively quoted 
in Parliament on June 17, 1901, when Mr. Lloyd George 
referred to him as “ a former member of this House—and everyone 
who knows him will be convinced of the accuracy of every statement 
he makes. His word is as good as his oath.” After this visit to South 
Africa, Friends and others were allowed to distribute clothing, 
nourishing foods, and medical stores in the camps. Some help was 
also given to the English refugees from the Transvaal. When the 
authorities had realized the conditions, they took steps to remedy 
the worst evils, but the discovery of these evils was due to the reports 
of Miss Hobhouse and Joshua Rowntree, which were loudly 
denounced at the time as unpatriotic. Later on others continued 
the work of relief, and women Friends were among those who 
helped Miss Hobhouse in her work of reconstruction, teaching 
weaving and other home industries to the Boer women. One piece 
of work, the restoration of Boer family Bibles lost or destroyed 
in the war, had the especial sympathy of Lord Roberts, who issued 
an appeal to the soldiers to give up any which were in their possession. 
Where possible the original Bibles were returned and, failing that, 
new ones given in their place. The discovery that there were English 
men and women ready to befriend them in their hour of need helped 
to soften the natural bitterness of the Boers toward their conquerors. 

1 Life of Joshua Rowntree, p. 118. 


CONCLUSION 


486 

The twelve years between the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 
and the outbreak of the European War in 1914, was a time of 
considerable growth and development in the Society. Younger 
Friends, in particular, began to take a large share in its activities 
and deliberations. Friends collectively and individually helped in 
the protest against the increase in all countries of vast and provocative 
armaments. 1 Lord Haldane’s organization of a volunteer Territorial 
army, expressly for home defence, was carried through under the 
Liberal Government in 1910 ; a few young men who were birth¬ 
right members of the Society joined this force. Their numbers 
were very small, but their action and, in one or two cases, resignation 
of their membership, caused some stir. The matter was under 
discussion in the Yearly Meeting of 1911, when the Peace Committee 
of the Meeting for Sufferings was commissioned to prepare a 
statement on “ Our Testimony for Peace,” which was brought 
before the next Yearly Meeting, approved, and circulated. During 
1911 and 1912 a lively correspondence was carried on in the Friend 
on the question of joining the Territorials, the writers being almost 
unanimous in considering the step an impossible one for a consistent 
Friend. The activities of the National Service League in pressing 
for the adoption of compulsory military service by this country 
naturally called out vigorous opposition from Friends. In November 
1913 the organ of the League (National Service League Notes) 
published an article, “ The Quakers’ Point of View,” in which, 
by a quotation from Fox on the “ Sword of Justice,” and the one 
from Penington on defence against invasion, it was implied that the 
early Quakers were not opposed to war. The Peace Committee 
had no difficulty in bringing forward evidence to the contrary.* 
Friends especially resented the assumption that the only national 
service which deserved the name was that rendered by soldiers. 
The Yearly Meeting of 1914 made a specific declaration on this 
point :— 

“We desire to reaffirm our sense of the responsibility for true 
national service which attaches to citizenship in a civilized State. 

1 In a memorial concerning the increased naval estimates, addressed to the 
Prime Minister in February 1909, the Meeting for Sufferings declared : “ We 
regard any such increase at this juncture as calculated to bring about similar 
increases on the part of other nations, with whom we are now manifestly being 
drawn into more friendly relations.” 

3 Quakers and War : The National Service League, by G. K. Hibbert (leaflet 
published by the Peace Committee of the Society of Friends). 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 487 

Our conviction of the unlawfulness of war to the Christian, which 
prevents us from giving to our country the military service willingly 
rendered by many, should specially call us to voluntary service in 
other ways, even at the cost of much personal sacrifice. Those who 
devote themselves with public spirit to the building of national 
character, the shaping of righteous policy at home or abroad, or the 
manifold tasks of local or central government, are doing work of 
high value for the Kingdom of God. ... It is our conviction 
that compulsory military training of any kind is an invasion of the 
rights of conscience, the right of every man to be free to follow 
where the truth leads him. There is to-day no more truly national 
service than the replacing of mutual suspicion between nations by 
mutual trust and helpfulness.” 

During these years, while Europe as a whole was happily free 
from war, Macedonia was never at peace. The stories which reached 
England of the plight of the non-combatant populations in the 
Balkan War led the Meeting for Sufferings to appoint a new War 
Victims’ Relief Committee in November 1912. Three Friends, 
as its agents, spent nearly five months distributing relief in 
Macedonia and Bulgaria, through local committees, in the districts 
where distress was greatest. During the same winter the Friends’ 
Mission in Constantinople (under Ann Burgess) was aided by funds 
from the Committee for the relief of the thousands of Moslem 
refugees who had taken refuge in the city. In all some £12,000 
was raised by the Committee. The second miserable war in which 
Bulgaria struggled against her former allies and, in the end, also 
against Turkey and Roumania, led to the reappointment of the 
Committee. Four thousand five hundred pounds was raised and 
mainly expended in the purchase of warm clothing, of which the 
Bulgarian refugees were in urgent need. This was sent out to a 
Bulgarian who had been associated with Friends in the earlier relief 
efforts and distributed by him. 

In the meantime, on the other side of the globe, Friends found 
themselves under the operation of a law to which their conscience 
was opposed. In 1909-10 Australia and New Zealand each adopted 
a scheme of defence which involved the compulsory military training 
of boys. In the former country all between the ages of 14 and 25 
were liable, in New Zealand all between 12 and 21. Under the 
Australian Act the conscientious objector was to be exempt “ upon 
such conditions as may be prescribed.” This the Defence Depart- 


CONCLUSION 


488 

ment explained to mean, not exemption from training, but in the 
case of “well-known denominations, such as Friends” training 
in ambulance and other non-combatant duties. Twenty-four years 
earlier the Editor of the Friend had commented on a case in the 
Channel Islands (where bylaw Friends were exempted from Militia 
service), when two conscientious objectors outside the body were 
imprisoned for refusal to serve. “ Is our Society satisfied with its 
exemption from such penalties ? Will it refuse any longer to pose 
as a specially favoured denomination ? So long as this iniquitous 
military system exists will it be willing to share with all others of 
like mind in the suffering for conscience’ sake which it involves ? 
Would it not thereby greatly increase its power in protesting against 
this terrible evil ?” x 

This was the problem that now faced Australasian Friends. 
They were very small bodies (664 members in Australia and 143 
in New Zealand), but their attitude throughout the struggle never 
wavered. 2 Only a handful of their members were affected, but they 
stood by all other conscientious objectors and, as far as they could, 
with those who opposed the Acts as an infringement of political 
liberty. The Australian General Meeting of 1910 considered the 
proposed conscience clause, and decided that it did not in any way 
meet the position. “ Therefore, as those who desire to remain law- 
abiding citizens of the Commonwealth, we are reluctantly compelled 
to declare that if these proposals are passed into law we shall be bound 
by our Christian conscience to refuse to yield them obedience.” 
But a deputation to the Federal Premier and Defence Minister 
received no concession : the latter minister told them that any boy 
over fourteen would be arrested and detained as a prisoner as long 
as he refused to comply with the Act. The Acts came into force 
in 1911, and in both countries Friends generally filled up the 
registration forms for their sons, adding a note to explain their 
objection to service. One or two Friends declined to register 
their boys, as by this refusal in the first instance they, and not 
their children, came into conflict with the law. 

1 Friend, 1886, p. 115. 

• The fullest account of the relation of Friends to the Defence Acts is in the 
Australian (later Australasian) Friend for the years since 1910. The Friend and 
British Friend gave much space to the question and occasionally gave additional 
details from private correspondence. In 1913-14 the Manchester Guardian 
and Yorkshire Post opened their correspondence columns to a discussion of the 
Defence Acts, in which both sides were fairly represented. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 489 

By this time English Friends were alive to the situation. 
(Technically the Australian and New Zealand Friends are 
considered a part of London Yearly Meeting.) The Meeting for 
Sufferings, which for the first time for many years had a prospect 
of duties towards members of the Society appropriate to its old name, 
appointed a Committee, later merged in the Australasian Committee, 
to watch the operation of the Acts and consult with Friends in 
the colonies, and messages of sympathy and encouragement poured 
over from England and America. One of these was from the Yearly 
Meeting of North Carolina, reminding them that “ in the late 
Civil War, many of our Friends suffered for a like testimony. Some 
of these are still living at a great age and are present at this Yearly 
Meeting.” 1 They were followed by deputations of Friends from 
England, anxious to share more closely in the burden of their fellow 
members, who did valuable work both in making clear to the 
authorities the attitude of Friends on the whole peace question, 
and in uniting the many sections of opinion in the colonies opposed 
to the Acts. One Friend was the founder of the political movement 
against the Act, later known as the Australian Freedom League. 

In the summer of 1911 the Acts began to operate, and their 
actual working caused much moderate opinion to decide against the 
compulsory clauses. This was due not merely to the treatment of 
the conscientious objectors, who were comparatively few in numbers, 
but to the hardships and inequalities revealed in many other cases. 
Boys of the upper and middle classes could put in their drills at 
school with the minimum of inconvenience, while working lads, 
after a hard day’s labour, had to travel long distances to attend. 
When the prosecutions of the so-called “shirkers” began, the 
penalties inflicted were harsh. In New Zealand youths who refused 
to drill could be deprived of their civil rights for any period up to 
ten years ; if the lighter penalty of a fine were inflicted, their 
employers were empowered to deduct the amount from their wages. 
In the case of younger boys still at school the Education Department 
intervened and deprived them of free places and scholarships. The 
New Zealand Minister for Education was also the Minister of 
Defence : in an interview he declared that this deprivation of 
educational facilities was “a punishment no greater, nor indeed 
so great, as that of being disfranchised. ... I cannot imagine 
anyone who desires educational advantages refusing to comply with 
1 Australian Friend, April 1914. 


490 


CONCLUSION 


the law of the land.” 1 Nevertheless, both in Australia and New 
Zealand the prosecutions rapidly increased, and a serious proportion 
of the youths liable to training evaded it. 

It is certain that neither Government wished to come into 
conflict with the objector on religious grounds. At Hobart, 
Tasmania, there is a large Friends’ school. In it the authorities 
never enforced the provision for military drill in the case of Friend 
pupils, and allowed the others to perform it at a centre independent 
of the school. An early deputation of New Zealand Friends (July 
1911), which told the Minister for Education that under the existing 
Act they saw no resort but emigration, was assured by him that 
“ if he could manage to have their attitude met without breaking 
down the system, he would do so.” As Friends saw the Acts in 
operation, however, they became convinced that no conscience 
clause, but only the repeal of compulsion, could meet the situation . 2 
The General Meeting of New Zealand Friends in 1912, after 
declaring Friends’ loyalty to the peace principles, “held by our 
Society for over two hundred and fifty years,” continued, “ after 
careful deliberation, they see no other way of consistently upholding 
their testimony than by declining to undertake any duty that will 
bring them under military control or the operation of the Defence 
Act. Nor can they define any duties that, whilst meeting the 
consciences of some, may violate those of others.” In the same 
year the Australian General Meeting described the Commonwealth 
Defence Act, “with its disregard of conscience and its denial of 
parental rights, as subversive of religious and civil liberty.” 

Friends, however, were at the same time reminded that the 
testimony against war was a deeper thing than opposition to any 
specific Act of Parliament, and were warned not to let it degenerate 
into a purely political agitation. It was not until the winter of 
I 9 I2 ~ I 3 that any Friends came under the Act. Francis Hopkins, 
Rockhampton, Queensland, was fined for omitting to register his 
grandson. In the spring William Ingle, who had recently emigrated 
from Yorkshire, was convicted in Adelaide of the same offence, 
and underwent fourteen days’ imprisonment, as he refused to pay 

1 Herald (New Zealand), June 25, 1913. 

* -A- warning by London Yearly Meeting in 1911 against “ undertaking services 
auxiliary to warfare in positions where they would be under military orders,” 
was included in the Book of Discipline as revised in 1912. This was directly due 
to the Australasian situation. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 


49 1 

a fine. His son was registered by the “ area officer ” in control 
of the cadets, without his parents’ consent, and on his refusal to drill 
he was imprisoned by the military for fourteen days, during which 
time for two days he was on a bread and water diet. Sidney Crosland, 
aged eighteen, was prosecuted at Newcastle, New South Wales, 
for refusing to drill. At the trial the magistrate remarked to the 
“ area officer,” who acted as prosecutor : “It seems to me that to 
you the most important thing in the world is the military test, 
while to the defendant religious principles are highest.” Crosland 
served three weeks’ imprisonment (out of a sentence of fifty-three 
days) in military barracks. He was offered non-combatant clerical 
work, but refused it, and though after his release he still abstained 
from drills, he was not again prosecuted. In August a Melbourne 
Friend, Christopher Flinn, was fined and distrained upon for failure 
to register his son, aged fourteen. 

After these experiences the Australian General Meeting held 
that autumn, definitely recommended Friends not to register their 
children, as by this abstention the parent had at least an opportunity 
of stating his views. In October 1913 another young Friend, Douglas 
Allen of Melbourne, was prosecuted ; at the first hearing of the 
case the magistrate definitely stated that the Act made no allowance 
for conscientious objectors. Later, Allen was sentenced to twenty 
days’ detention in a fortress. A deputation of Australian Friends 
in March 1914 waited upon the Premier and Minister for Defence 
with a remonstrance from the London Meeting for Sufferings. 
The Premier replied that the Act would be administered without 
discrimination, though as leniently as possible, and Friends could 
not be exempted. “ The law cannot be altered.” 

A few months later, in June, another boy, Thomas Roberts, 
aged sixteen, of Brighton, Victoria, was sentenced to twenty-one 
days’ imprisonment in Queenscliff Fortress. “ On the third day, 
for continued refusal to drill, he was court-martialled, and sentenced 
to seven days’ solitary confinement. This was in a cell ten feet by 
ten feet, and unlighted except by a grating. He had a wooden stretcher 
with mattress and blankets, which were only allowed him at night. 
He had two half-hours’ exercise daily, was placed on half-diet, and 
was not permitted to read or write.”* The boy had recently been 
ill, when he endured this penalty, one usually reserved for refractory 
criminals. The case aroused so much public indignation that the 
1 1 Friend (London), July 31, 1914* 


49 2 CONCLUSION 

Government had to announce that no more solitary confinement 
would be inflicted. 

The question of alternative service was discussed again at their 
Meetings this year by both Australian and New Zealand Friends. 
The Australian Meeting, which was held after the outbreak of the 
European War, passed a minute that, as the only alternative service 
suggested was in connection with the Defence Act, “ We regret, 
from the point of view of those who desire to be and to remain law- 
abiding citizens, that we cannot see our way to recommend to Friends 
the acceptance of any form of service under its direction. We recog¬ 
nize, however, that the final decision must rest with the individual 
conscience.” The New Zealand General Meeting of 1915 declared 
that “war, which involves the wilful infliction of sorrow and 
suffering upon our fellows, is the very negation of Christ’s spirit.” 
New Zealand Friends, however, had not suffered from the Defence 
Act. In a debate on the question of exemption in the Australian 
Federal Senate (June 10, 1914), the Minister for Defence was 
asked what course the New Zealand authorities had adopted, and 
replied : “ What they attempted to do in New Zealand was nothing, 
and they did it most successfully. I have it from one of the highest 
authorities there that although Parliament passed a law, that law is 
not being carried out, and the result is that the Dominion is drifting 
into a system which ... is very much of a voluntary system .” 1 
The imprisonment and solitary confinement of some boys (not 
Friends) in Ripa Island Fortress, New Zealand, in June and July 
I 9 I 3 , led to protests by Labour organizations and their release. 
The position of Australasian Friends during the war is described 
later in this chapter. 

In England the outbreak of war in 1914 was as appalling and 
unexpected to Friends as to the majority of their fellow countrymen. 
It is true that in the peace discussions at the Yearly Meeting for 
some years past speaker after speaker had emphasized the imminent 
danger to civilization in the rival armaments and incompatible claims 
of the Great Powers, but the liabilities assumed by England were 
unknown to most people, and it was believed that she stood free 
from the European complication. The Yearly Meeting Epistle 
of 19 1 3 could say : With thankfulness we note an advance in the 
Peace Movement. We are probably nearer to a complete under¬ 
standing with Germany than has been the case for many years. 

1 Quoted in Friend (London), August 14, 1914. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 493 

The forces that make for arbitration and international good-will 
are gaining in strength and confidence.” It is true that the document 
continued : “ Never was there greater need. Not only the great 
European nations, but the hitherto peaceful peoples also, are being 
sucked into the vortex of military preparations. The Church of 
to-day needs to discover its Lord as the Prince of Peace,” and added 
that, in view of the strength of the National Service Movement, 
“ the time may not be distant when we too shall be called upon 
to defend our principles at heavy cost.” 

In less than three years that time had arrived. In the Yearly 
Meeting of 1914, held at the end of May, the grave situation in 
Ireland caused more concern than any anticipated danger of war 
abroad. An international peace convention of members of Christian 
Churches was actually being held in Constance at the beginning 
of August. Some Friends and other English delegates were able 
to journey home in comparative comfort owing to the exertions of 
the Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, and others in high position, 
on their behalf. They reached England just as our country entered 
the war, and at the Meeting for Sufferings held on August 7th these 
Friends brought forward a message, “To men and women of 
good-will in the British Empire,” which was published by the 
Meeting. Critics described the document as “ too lengthy, too 
optimistic, premature in some of its propositions, and lacking in a 
sense of practicalness.” 1 But it met with a remarkable welcome, 
and its call “ to be courageous in the cause of love and in the hate 
of hate ... in time of war let all men of good-will prepare for 
peace,” sounded a note little heard in those fevered days of August. 
It was printed in full as an advertisement in many papers, read in 
some churches and chapels in place of a sermon, and sent out in large 
quantities in answer to requests for distribution. Nearly 475,000 
copies were circulated in England, and 50,000 in America ; it was 
translated into Dutch, Danish, Italian, and Chinese and received 
friendly notice in various foreign papers. “ An English copy of the 
message which was sent to Germany was also translated there, 
and circulated amongst ministers of religion throughout the country, 
the cost being borne in Germany.” 2 

At this Meeting for Sufferings the first suggestions were made 
of work to be undertaken by Friends in war-time, and one, the help of 

* Friend, August 14, 1914. 

» Proceedings of Yearly Meeting, 1915. 


CONCLUSION 


494 

destitute Germans and Austrians in England, took definite shape. 
During the war, three special branches of service were pursued 
by Friends, apart from the work in hospitals, in canteens, among 
Belgian refugees and the like, in which they joined in movements 
organized by the nation at large. The three branches were : “ The 
Emergency Committee for the Assistance of Germans, Austrians, 
Hungarians, and Turks in Distress,” “ The War Victims’ Relief 
Committee,” and “The Friends’ Ambulance Unit.” 1 The 
Emergency Committee was the first formed, in the early days of 
August 1914 . 2 3 Begun by Friends, it was warmly welcomed by 
many others (among the distinguished men and women who gave 
their names in support of its appeal was the Archbishop of Canter¬ 
bury), and it was in close touch with the Home Office and the 
American Embassy, to which the interests of alien enemies had been 
committed. With a central office in London and branch committees 
and representatives in the provinces, it was almost entirely staffed 
by voluntary workers, many of them not Friends. Later on the 
Committee experienced the curious inconsistencies of a state of war. 
Under the Military Service Act, 1916, its first chairman, Stephen 
Hobhouse, and several other workers, were imprisoned, while, 
under the administration of the same Act, the Committee received 
workers through the Home Service section of the Friends’ Ambulance 
Unit (described later in this chapter) on the ground that its work 
was of “ national importance.” The work was, of course, unpopular 
with a large section of the newspaper Press and its readers, but the 
Committee avoided many difficulties by the care with which it kept 
in touch with the Home Office and the police authorities. Under 
the War Charities Act, 1916, it was registered as an approved war 
relief agency. The underlying motive of the Committee was to 
pursue peace even in the midst of war. “ It seemed the easiest and 
simplest way of carrying out the command to ‘ love our enemies ’ 
and to 4 do good ’ to those that hate us .”3 

At first there was acute distress among the families of Germans 
and Austrians (in many of which the wife was English and the 

1 In November 1914, the Meeting for Sufferings circulated to all Meetings 
a “ Declaration on the War ” which, while reaffirming the Quaker faith urged 
members “ to contribute our lives to the cause of love, in helping our country to 
a more Christ-like idea of service,” and to join in measures of war relief. 

a St. Stephen's House , by Anna B. Thomas, 1921, gives a full account of the 
seven years’ work of the committee. The title is the name of its first headquarters. 

3 Ibid., p. 20. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 


495 

children English-born) when the breadwinner was thrown out of 
work, and in most cases interned. Later some small Government 
provision was made, by the English Government, where the wife 
was English, and by the German and Austrian Governments for 
women of those nationalities, but, as the cost of living increased, 
supplementary help was urgently needed. 1 This was given by the 
Committee mainly in the form of milk, fuel, and clothing. During 
the later years of the war nearly two thousand ailing or delicate 
children were sent for country holidays of a month or more, and 
a rest home gave renewed strength to many over-strained mothers. 
The visitors to these families sent reports of them to the interned 
men, while the visitors to the internment camps reported on the health 
of the husbands and fathers there. These visitors (who went under 
Government permits) were mainly occupied in organizing industries 
among the prisoners, providing tools and equipment, and advancing the 
materials for work, while the articles made were disposed of through 
the Committee. American Y.M.C.A. workers and Dr. Markel’s 
committee (organized by the representative in England of the German 
Red Cross) aimed at meeting other needs of the camps, so that 
the Emergency visitors concentrated on this industrial work among 
interned civilians. A Canadian Friend devoted his whole time for 
three years to travelling from camp to camp getting into personal 
touch with the men, and an English Friend, an experienced teacher 
of handicrafts, also gave full-time service. The occupation provided 
was a godsend to men suffering from long confinement and enforced 
idleness, but in addition there was the moral effect of “ Englishmen, 
representing many others, coming into the camp in pure friendship. 
It was a pledge that the spirit of hatred and the fever of war did not 
possess the whole land. It was the link, so much needed, with the 
common feelings of humanity and sympathy that were still ruling in 
simple hearts all over the world.” 3 

Another branch of the work was concerned with the repatriation 
of women, children, and a few elderly men, allowed by the Government 
to return to their native land. Among these were the German mis¬ 
sionaries and their families, expelled from their stations in India 

i The scale of relief (which was administered by Boards of Guardians) was 
first fixed, in November 1914* at 10s. a week for the wife and is. 6d. for each child 
under fourteen years of age. It was gradually raised and stood in 19 1 7 I 2 s. 6 d. 
for the wife and 3s. for each child. The scale in the provinces was lower, as was 
that granted by the enemy Governments (St. Stephen s House , p. 86). 

* St. Stephen's House , p. 74. 


CONCLUSION 


496 


and Africa, and brought to England with scanty provision for a 
northern winter. After many hardships the families were repatriated, 
and the ordained missionaries allowed to join them after a few months’ 
internment, but the laymen were kept in England till the end of the 
war. An American Friend, Dr. Henrietta Thomas, was permitted 
during the earlier part of the war to travel several times to Germany 
and Austria in charge of parties of women and children and to bring 
back similar groups of English people to England.* Later the work 
done in this way had to be limited to arranging the details of travel 
and escorting the parties to Tilbury. There milk was provided for the 
children, and the travellers helped through the intricacies of the official 
examination before going on to the boat. A hostel was also provided 
in London to accommodate parties from the country, who often 
had to spend some days there completing the necessary formalities, 
before they could start. In one sudden and tragic emergency, the 
Committee’s help was swift to meet an urgent need ; at the time of 
the Lusitania riots a number of families whose houses had been 
wrecked were sheltered for some weeks in a Friends’ meeting-house 
in London. 

Thomas’s visits to Germany brought her into touch with a 
Berlin Committee to help alien enemies. Its members were chiefly 
men and women who had taken active part in the Anglo-German 
Friendship movement. At the outbreak of war they began to do 
what they could to help those stranded in an enemy country, but 
the news brought by returning Germans of the work in England 
encouraged them in November 1914 to establish a formal organiza¬ 
tion. The first appeal to the public stated : “ The task is laid upon 
us by our own desire to render friendly service in these times of hatred 
to those who now find it so difficult to obtain help. Even in war-time 
whoever needs our help is our neighbour, and love of their enemies 
remains the distinguishing mark of those who are loyal to our Lord.” * 
The main work of the Committee was the relief of distressed civilians, 
in particular the families of the interned men. A very large propor¬ 
tion of those helped were Russians, who for many reasons found it 
more difficult to return home, and who were often people of very 
small means. German ladies also acted as escorts to neutral countries, 
whence they could return to their families, of many French and 


^ 0mas k T 0re out h " s ^ n gffi in this Emergency work and later in help 
to conscientious objectors. She died in 1919. * 

* Quoted in The Friend\ December 18, 1914. 


497 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 

Belgian children who were either at school in the occupied areas 
or had been separated from their parents by some misadventure. 

The chief work for the interned was done by the American 
Y.M.C.A., but the Committee was able to send food and clothing 
to some camps. It was supported by people of influence—in June 
1916 a meeting on its behalf was held at the house of Prince 
Lichnowsky, the late Ambassador in London—and it was active 
in making known the help given to aliens in England by the Emergency 
Committee. The Berliner Tageblatt , in particular, published several 
articles on the subject, some by repatriated Germans, and others 
by Dr. Elisabeth Rotten, secretary of the Berlin Committee and 
formerly lecturer at the Women’s Colleges in Cambridge. The 
chief defect of these articles is a tendency to represent the English 
work as due to Friends alone, whereas about half the Committee 
were not Friends, and a great part of the funds came from outside 
sources. 

Even with the armistice the work of the Emergency Committee 
was still required. Its employment bureau was occupied with the 
aliens allowed to remain in England, and early in 1919 a “ Foreign 
Fund” was established, which, under Government sanction, sent food, 
clothing, and nursing comforts to mothers and infants in Germany 
and Austria who were suffering pitiably from the food blockade. 
This led in May 1919 to a request by the Board of Trade that the 
Committee would also organize the supply and transport of food 
parcels from individuals here to friends or relations in Central Europe. 
The difficulties of transport caused long delays in the delivery of 
these parcels, but comparatively few went entirely astray. The 
natural outcome of this work was the amalgamation of the Emergency 
Committee with the War Victims’ Committee in 1920. Up to that 
time the former body had expended about £100,000 in its work in 
England, and had had the help of two hundred and forty workers 
in London besides those in the provinces. 

The War Victims’ Relief Committee was a little later in the 
field than either the Emergency Committee or the Friends’ 
Ambulance Unit, for during the first weeks of the war the advance 
of the German armies in Belgium and north-eastern France made 
it impossible to help non-combatant sufferers. When that advance 
was checked, and at last pushed back, it was clear that in the areas 
over which fighting had taken place, there was not only terrible 
devastation and poverty, but grave risk of epidemic disease. The 

32 


CONCLUSION 


498 

call for help was brought before the Meeting for Sufferings on 
September 4th by Dr. Hilda Clark and other Friends. The Meeting 
appointed the War Victims’ Relief Committee, which early in 
November sent out the first band of thirty-three volunteer workers 
to the districts round Chalons, Vitry, and Sermaize. Among the 
members were doctors, nurses, architects, and sanitary engineers, 
who undertook, in addition to various forms of relief, the work of 
reconstruction, medical help, sanitation, and the revival of agricul¬ 
ture. Some of the damaged houses were rebuilt and many more 
temporary ones erected out of the timber given by the French 
Government. These were made in workshops and construction camps, 
and furnished through the help of the “ Bon Gite ” and other French 
relief societies. 1 A Maternity Hospital was opened at Chalons, 
where many mothers had the rest and care they sorely needed after 
their harrowing experiences. 2 Other small hospitals and dispensaries 
were established at different centres, and a much-needed scheme of 
district nursing was carried out. Informal schools were provided 
for the children, who were running wild, and workrooms for the 
girls and women. They were taught simple embroidery in bright 
colours, and their gay productions sold readily in Paris, England, 
and America. 

Most important of all, much was done for agriculture in a district 
mainly dependent on that oldest of industries. Agricultural machinery 
and tools were provided, and in the hay and harvest seasons young 
Quaker farmers helped the women and old men left on the land 
to save their crops, while distributions of seeds and of rabbits and 
poultry, from stock reared by the relief-workers, were also made. 
The work had its peculiar difficulties and dangers ; the most 
hazardous task was the removal to other districts of children from 
the bombarded areas, and from Rheims in particular, which was 
frequently undertaken. In 1918, owing to violent bombardment 
and air-raids, the Chalons hospital was temporarily abandoned, 
mothers, babies, and nursing staff being conveyed to a refuge forty 


* Later on the Emergency Committee supplied some furniture made in the 
internment camp workshops, and clothing made by unemployed alien tailors 
and by women whose husbands were interned. Thus representatives of three 
combatant countries were united in a work of relief (St. Stephen’s House, 
pp. 73, 133). 

a Since the war this Hospital has been established in a permanent building 
endowed by the contributions of English and American Friends, and controlled 
by a local committee. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 


499 

miles away. The relief work was appreciated by the French authori¬ 
ties, national and local, and on the whole the workers were trusted 
by the military commanders, but the necessary regulations and 
limitations of work in a military area were often irksome. After 
the coming of conscription men workers of military age had a very 
uncertain tenure. “In the spring of 1918, at a moment of great 
military anxiety, new workers leaving England and old workers 
returning from furlough were compelled by the authorities to sign 
a statement that they would not, while absent from England, take 
part in propaganda of any kind. Had it not been for the urgency 
of the work already undertaken, and the fact that the work itself 
was a true witness to our faith, many workers certainly would have 
felt unable to take this pledge. The embargo was continued for 
some time after the armistice and then withdrawn.” 1 

In 1917, at the request of the French, the work was extended 
into the devastated Somme area, after Hindenburg’s retreat, but in 
April 1918, during the last German advance, workers and inhabi¬ 
tants had again to evacuate this region. After the armistice the large 
“ Verdun ” area on the Meuse was handed over to the Friends for 
reconstruction. Military restrictions were relaxed, and “ a wonderful 
opportunity of service came through daily contact with the large 
number of German prisoners who for many months worked in the 
neighbourhood of our different centres, many of them assisting in 
our task of rebuilding as well as in housework and transport. Some 
had grave misgivings as to the consistency of the Mission’s making 
use of prisoners’ labour, but for the prisoners themselves there was 
no doubt. It was not merely that they were able thus to have good 
food or welcome clothing and comforts ; they were treated like 
men and made to feel that they were among friends. “ Heute ist mir 
wie Himmel gewesen,” said one such prisoner, after a hard day’s 
work unloading timber. 2 In the autumn of 1919 three of the 
Mission spent some months in Germany visiting the families of 
these prisoners and taking to them a gift of twenty marks for every 
day’s labour with the Mission. This message of love and friendship 
was warmly welcomed by hundreds of German households. 

In the summer of 1917 the first detachment of American workers 
sent over by the American Friends’ Service Committee, was the 

1 T. E. Harvey in All Friends ’ Conference , 1920, Report of English Commission 
VII. 27-8. 

* T. E. Harvey, op. cit. p. 28. 


CONCLUSION 


500 

beginning of a continuous stream of helpers. These American 
Friends greatly increased the scope and usefulness of the Mission : 
they took full share in the organization and carrying out of all its 
activities, and soon became the largest contingent in the field. 

Another branch of the work grew up in Holland among the 
great camps of Belgian refugees in that hospitable land. Industries 
were started to occupy the compulsorily idle, and some hut-building 
provided home life and privacy for those who most felt the loss. 
The workers in Holland, at the request of the English Government, 
also cared for parties of English civilians, released from Germany, 
on the journey from the frontier to Flushing. Relief work in Serbia 
was planned, and though the progress of the Austro-German invasion 
made this impossible, yet the Friends who went out were able to work 
under the Serbian Relief Fund in helping the refugees on their arrival 
in Albania and at Salonika, and on their further journeyings to Corsica 
and southern France. 

Later, again, another band of medical and relief workers went 
out in July and August 1916 to an area of some seven hundred 
square miles in the Buzuluk district of south-east Russia, which 
had added twenty thousand Polish refugees to its population of seventy 
or eighty thousand souls. There was no resident doctor in the whole 
area. Both before and after the Revolution medical service was 
rendered to the whole district, and various forms of relief carried on, 
but in 1918 the unsettlement due to civil war forced the Mission 
to withdraw. In 1919 work began in Poland among the returned 
refugees—some of them old friends from Buzuluk—who had come 
back to a country devastated early in the war by both armies. Their 
homes were destroyed and their land desolate and out of cultivation. 
The Friends’ Unit fought the typhus epidemic brought back by the 
refugees and fostered by the conditions under which they had to 
live, and then helped in the work of reconstruction. It lent horses 
for ploughing and for hauling wood to build houses, provided seeds, 
tools, and clothing, and revived embroidery and other industries. 
In 1920 the work in Russia was resumed ; since then the Mission 
has been working in the large famine area round Buzuluk. In the 
worst scarcity it fed 260,000 people daily. In Russia and Poland 
the danger from typhus was great, the disease attacked several of 
the Mission workers, Friends and others, of whom three died. 

In July 1919 four representatives of the War Relief and 
Emergency Committees, with an American woman Friend, visited 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 


501 

Germany and Austria. The suffering they saw as a result of the 
Allied blockade and the depreciated currencies impelled them to 
help, though relief seemed only to touch the fringe of the misery. 
This help, in both countries, took the form of meals for school 4 
children and students, milk for infants and mothers, and (particularly 
in Vienna) employment for starving artists and craftsmen. The 
Vienna Mission imported nearly two thousand cows for farmers 
round Vienna. These were paid for in milk, which was distributed 
to hospitals and delicate children. In all these activities, especially 
after the armistice, Friends were helped by the contributions and 
service of sympathizers outside the Society. Up to the end of 1919 
the money received from England and America, from Friends and non- 
Friends, amounted to more than £500,000, and about seven hundred 
and fifty English men and women had taken part in the work. Later 
resources were largely increased by relief grants from the Government 
and from the “Save the Children Fund.” The united War Relief 
and Emergency Committee still continues its work in Austria, 
Poland, and Russia, and the final chapter of its story has yet to be 
written. Its work, and the very important service of American 
Friends (described later), have called out in Europe an interest in the 
religion which led men and women in time of war to help allies 
and “ enemies ” alike. One result has been the creation of small 
“Quaker embassies”—centres of Friends’ work and worship in 
Paris, Geneva, and in various Austrian and German cities. This 
work, and the care of the groups of Friends which have grown up 
round these centres and elsewhere, is undertaken by the Council 
for International Service of London and Dublin Yearly Meetings. 

This summary has not touched on the relief undertaken by 
Friends, under non-Quaker agencies or as individuals, in other areas 
suffering from the war. Work was also done by local Meetings. 
Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting, for example, maintained and staffed 
for nearly two years a seaside home in Holland, where underfed 
German children were brought back to normal health. 

The Friends’ Ambulance Unit, the third important activity of 
Friends, arose from the desire of many young men to serve in the 
war zone, where their countrymen were in hourly danger. In 
September 1914 sixty of these men went through a strenuous course 
of ambulance training, while a Committee of elder Friends, under 
the chairmanship of Sir George Newman, tried to find a sphere for 
their work. Their aim was “ to render voluntary non-military 


CONCLUSION 


502 

service in relief of the suffering and distress resulting from war,” 
and in October an opportunity offered itself in Dunkirk. There, in 
the dressing-sheds, the Unit had the care of six thousand badly 
wounded men. After this first emergency the work developed 
widely. The history of the Unit has been summarized by its chair¬ 
man : “ It began with forty-three men, it ended with over six 
hundred in France and Flanders alone ; it began with a donation of 
£100, it received ultimately in voluntary contributions £138,000 ; it 
began not knowing whither it went or what were to be its duties, 
it finished having been responsible for a comprehensive organization 
of ambulance and hospital service in many fields. It had the working 
of a dozen hospitals, the majority of which it actually established 
and managed—at Dunkirk, Ypres, Poperinghe, Hazebrouck, and 
elsewhere in Flanders . . . and at York, Birmingham, London, 
and Richmond at home. At the Queen Alexandra Hospital at 
Dunkirk 12,000 in-patients were treated, and a still larger total 
number at the other centres ; 27,000 inoculations against typhoid 
fever were made in Belgium and thus the ravages of this disease were 
stayed and the armies protected ; 15,000 Belgian refugees were fed, 
and a vast quantity of clothing was distributed ; lace-making centres 
were created, temporary schools and orphanages were established, 
provision was made for milk distribution and for water purification 
in Belgium ; tens of thousands of soldiers were received at the 
three recreation huts at Dunkirk ; the two hospital ships transported 
overseas 33,000 cases ; the ambulance convoys ran more than two 
and a half million kilometres and carried over 260,000 sick or wounded 
soldiers of all nations ; and the four ambulance trains conveyed 
520,000 patients. This work was done by an unenlisted and unpaid 
band of young men, providing through the support of their friends 
their own staff, equipment, and expenditure. Twenty of these peace- 
lovers made the supreme sacrifice ; many others were wounded 
or invalided, and ninety-six were awarded the Croix de Guerre , or 
other decorations for valour.” 1 Of the twenty members who lost 
their lives nine were killed by shell-fire or in air raids, and the others 
died from illness contracted on service. Besides the six hundred 
men (mainly Friends) and ninety women in France and Flanders, 
there were at one time more than four hundred men employed 
as orderlies in the English hospitals, apart from the General Service 

* The Friends' Ambulance Unity by M. Tatham and J. E. Miles (Introduction, 
pp. ix-x). This book gives a full account of the work and position of the Unit. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 


503 

section, described later. Some of the workers, including the Unit’s 
first leader, Philip Baker, afterwards served in Mr. G. M. Trevelyan’s 
British-Italian Ambulance Unit, but this gallant body had no direct 
connection with Friends. 

From its inception, however, some Friends considered that the 
Unit’s work was too closely akin to ordinary war medical service, 
and these criticisms increased after the introduction of conscription, 
when the position of the Unit became, as will appear, somewhat 
ambiguous. On April 7, 1916, Sir George Newman, in the Friend , 
described the Unit as “ voluntary, unpaid, unenlisted, and non¬ 
military. It is not a part of the R.A.M.C. or of the Non-combatant 
Corps. Its members do not take the military oath or bear arms, 
or undertake military duties.” These principles led the Committee 
to withdraw its workers from a military hospital in London, and, 
after some months’ service, from two hospital ships, on the decision 
of the authorities (during the height of the submarine activity) to 
remove them from the protection of the Red Cross and to put guns 
on board. 

Out of the 20,000 Friends of Great Britain, 1 only a small 
proportion was able to take this active personal share in relieving 
the miseries of war. Those at home gave money help according 
to their power to these organizations and to the many other forms 
of suffering and distress which claimed help. A considerable number 
worked among the Belgian refugees and in the voluntary Red Cross 
hospitals, or in the Y.M.C.A., and other canteens established in 
the military centres. Others devoted themselves more earnestly 
than before to various forms of social and public work, which were 
losing support among the new and urgent needs created by the war. 
Work on behalf of peace and international reconciliation was still 
carried on, and met, on the whole, with a less hostile reception than 
in the days of the Boer War. Friends were numerous among the 
supporters of organizations which were popularly called by the 
rather clumsy term “ pacifist,” but there was also much peace work 
within the Society itself, whether in the form of conferences and 
open meetings, or in the publication and distribution of books and 
pamphlets. 

But from the very opening of the war, it was clear that a section 

1 The numbers in London Yearly Meeting were 20,007, of whom 834 were 
in Australia and New Zealand. A pamphlet, Friends' Service in War Time , by 
E. Fox Howard, describes these and other activities. 


504 


CONCLUSION 


of the Society felt that this war was one waged on behalf of a wronged 
and helpless nation and against an unscrupulous and powerful enemy, 
and demanded the active support of Friends and the temporary or 
permanent abandonment of what they described as the “ traditional 
testimony” against war. A few went farther, trying to prove that 
the testimony was not even traditional, and had never been held 
by the majority of the Society, but in these efforts they were not 
very successful. The correspondence columns of the Friend during 
the first eighteen months of the war contained many letters in the 
foregoing sense. One reply described them as coming from those 
“ whose active interest in the Society seems to date from the time 
when the outbreak of the present war disclosed their wide divergence 
from the position of Friends as held through long years of trial, 
and as stated in our official documents.” 1 The description was true 
in many cases—some even were no longer members of the Society 
—but a few active and honoured Friends also took this view. Friends 
gathered for the Yearly Meeting in May 1915, in a state of 
uncertainty. It was known that some under the name of Friends 
had enlisted, that others were busy in recruiting or in the manufacture 
of munitions and military supplies, and no one was certain what 
proportion of the whole membership was in agreement with these 
actions. 

Day after day the large meeting-house at Devonshire House 
was crowded to the doors, and while those who wished to modify 
the position of Friends stated their case with force and fervour, 
it soon became clear that the “ sense of the meeting,” to use the 
Quaker phrase, was that the peace principles held by Friends were 
a vital part of the Society’s faith and could not be abandoned.* On 
the other hand, it was equally clear that on the question of Friends 
who actively supported the war the Meeting did not feel that 
disciplinary action should be taken at once. A report was presented 
to the Meeting by a Committee appointed from the Meeting for 
Sufferings to consider the enlistment of Friends, which was sum¬ 
marized as follows : 

“Fifty-eight out of sixty-eight Monthly Meeting clerks had 
replied to the questions sent down, from which replies it appeared 
that about two hundred and fifteen young men Friends had 
joined the Army or Navy, forty-three of them as members of 

1 Friend , December 17, 1915. 

* A full report was given in the Friend , May 28, 1915. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 505 

the R.A.M.C. In addition, about thirty had joined Citizens’ 
Guards or similar voluntary organizations, and fifteen Friends 
were known to be on recruiting committees or actively engaged 
in recruiting. 1 Of those on active service two had already lost 
their lives. Some of these Friends were regular attenders at 
Meetings, and a few were actively engaged in the work of the 
Meeting, but the larger number were only nominal Friends. About 
fifty resignations of membership had been sent in by those who had 
joined the Army or their sympathizers ; thirty of these had been 
accepted. The Committee pointed out the following facts : . . . 

?1. There is no question as to the principles of the Society, as 
expressed and revised from time to time in the Book of Discipline. 
This maintains an unequivocal testimony against all war. 

“2. The men who have joined the Army have done so, in 
almost every case, until the termination of the war. There is no 
machinery for freeing themselves before the end of the war from 
the obligation they have entered upon. 

“ 3. According to our discipline full responsibility for membership 
rests with the Monthly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting can, of 
course, advise on general principles, but it cannot intervene in a 
question of discipline, except in the case of an appeal. Questions 
are referred to the Yearly Meeting by minute of the Monthly Meeting 
through the Quarterly Meeting. 

“4. Monthly Meetings have the right to remove from their 
membership, either by dissociation or disownment. They may 
dissociate members who make little or no profession with Friends 
and do not attend Meetings for worship. They may ‘ issue a 
testimony of disownment ’ in respect of one ‘ who walks disorderly,’ 
who ‘ commits an offence,’ after he has been patiently dealt with. 
There are not other methods for removing a name from the list, 
unless the member himself decides to relinquish his membership. 
A member cannot be forced to resign.” 

In the short discussion which followed it was evident that most 
Friends considered that there were strong reasons for postponement 
of any decision. The Monthly Meetings with whom action lay 
had not raised the question. Many of the Friends concerned were 
absent in the army, and the whole matter of birthright membership 
was likely to come up for consideration in the near future. Some 
felt that a difficulty was shirked, but the general opinion was that 
1 Vide also Appendix F, Statistics of Enlistment. 


CONCLUSION 


506 

no good could come of prolonged discussion at the moment. A 
very large share of the ensuing meetings was devoted to peace. The 
conclusion, as expressed in one of the “ minutes ” presented by the 
Clerk, and accepted without dissent by the Meeting, was that the 
peace testimony “ has been clear and unmistakable from the earliest 
days of our history to the present, and we have rejoiced to hear it 
renewed to-day not only by those of maturer years, but particularly 
by our younger men. We have also been deeply impressed by the 
outspoken willingness of women Friends to accept all the consequences 
that may arise from a complete adherence to our peace testimony. 1 

“This testimony is one which comes welling up from within. 
It springs from the very heart of our faith. We recognize humbly 
that it has not been as influentially and effectively presented as it 
should have been and that there is an urgent call to be more faithful 
and to meet fearlessly the unprecedented challenge of to-day.” An 
intense interest was taken in the Epistle sent out by the Yearly 
Meeting. The document was drawn up by a small group of Friends 
chosen at a “Large Committee” (open to all Friends), submitted 
by them for criticism and correction to the same Committee, and 
finally read and signed by the Clerk at the concluding session of the 
Yearly Meeting. This year the Committee was crowded to the doors, 
and at its second meeting the draft was minutely considered, sentence 
by sentence, yet in the end accepted thankfully almost as it stood. 
Those present will never forget the solemnity and beauty with which 
the last words of the Epistle rang through the crowded meeting¬ 
house at the final sitting of the Yearly Meeting. 

“ The world can only be won for Christ as men are possessed 
by the infinite power which we call the love of God—the love that 
will not let men go—the love that ‘ beareth all things, believeth 
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,’ and that never 
faileth—the love that is Divine Omnipotence.” 

The Meeting ended with the familiar formula, used from early 

1 A group of young women Friends at a conference at Manchester some weeks 
earlier, had sent the following message to the young men Friends in separate session : 

“ We ask you not to use force to defend us, where you would not use it for any other 
reason, but to trust God with us and for us. We did not feel we could lightly 
ask this of you until we had faced it for ourselves. ... We realize that trust in 
God is no passive looking-on, but an intensely active thing. It often seems to 
fall to a woman s lot to have to trust while she sees others suffer. It may be that 
our men may have to share in this. And we realize that to ask you to be willing to 
do this is a very great thing to ask.” This was read in the Yearly Meeting, and 
endorsed by subsequent women speakers. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 507 

days of Quakerism : “The business of this Yearly Meeting being 
concluded, we separate, intending to meet again in London at the 
appointed time next year, if the Lord permit.” But instead of ending 
there, as usual, a sentence was added pointing to a possible re-summons 
of the present Meeting in case of any sudden emergency before the 
full year had elapsed. 

This emergency arose. In August 1915 the National Register 
was taken, in November the Derby scheme of “ groups ” and 
“attestations” was adopted, and in January 1916 the first Bill for 
Compulsory Military Service was introduced, which to most clear¬ 
sighted persons seemed the obvious sequel of the methods used in 
these previous governmental activities. Friends for the most part 
followed the practice of their fellow members in Australasia, and 
filled up the register, many adding a declaration that they could 
not give any military service. A very few attested, but most of those 
likely to do so were among the three hundred who had already 
enlisted. In November 1915 the Meeting for Sufferings considered 
the action of the Society in the event of conscription. Emigration, 
a course suggested by one Friend, found no support, and it was 
felt that the Society had a duty to help not only its own 
members, but also others with a conscientious objection to military 
service. 

The Yearly Meeting had appointed a “Friends’ Service Com¬ 
mittee,” which consisted at first mainly of young men of military 
age. It became the chief agent of the Society in matters concerning 
conscription. In January 1916 the Meeting for Sufferings approved 
a letter to the Prime Minister, drafted by the Peace Committee, 
and the Friends’ Service Committee, which, while recognizing that 
the Government wished to meet the case of the conscientious objector, 
explained that in the Bill it was, in fact, not met. 

“We know that a large number of conscientious objectors are 
not prepared to accept compulsory service, whether combatant or 
otherwise, under military authorities. To attempt to compel persons 
holding these views to accept service required by the military 
authorities for the successful prosecution of the war would, in our 
opinion, be a violation of freedom of conscience.” 

This Meeting decided that the adjourned Yearly Meeting 
should be held, and it was summoned for January 28—30. 
Meanwhile Friends who had been brought into close touch with 
other conscientious objectors—three Friends were on the National 


CONCLUSION 


508 

Committee of the No-Conscription Fellowship 1 —felt it was impos¬ 
sible for the Quaker objectors to stand apart from the rest. The 
adjourned Meeting was even more crowded than that of May 1915 ; 
the numbers at some sessions were computed at about twelve hundred, 
of whom young men formed a large proportion. These men of 
military age held two separate sessions to consider their own problems, 
and in particular the vexed question of alternative service. They 
reported that the strongest body of opinion was against the acceptance 
of this, and the matter was left by the Yearly Meeting to the 
individual decision of Friends when they appeared before the tribunals 
administering the Act. After long and prayerful discussion and 
consideration, in which a wide range of opinion was expressed, from 
those who thought that all ought to accept alternative service to those 
who felt that none should contemplate it, a public statement was 
issued in the name of the Meeting. 

“We take this our earliest opportunity of reaffirming our 
entire opposition to compulsory military service, and our desire for 
the repeal of the Act. . . . 

“We regard the central conception of the Act as imperilling 
the liberty of the individual conscience, which is the main hope of 
human progress—and as entrenching more deeply that militarism 
from which we all desire the world to be freed. . . . 

“We consider that young men may do important service by 
going before the tribunals, claiming exemption, and making 
clear their reasons for doing so. At the same time we cannot 
admit that a human tribunal is an adequate judge of any man’s 
conscience . . . 

Our lives should prove that compulsion is unnecessary and 
impolitic. ... We pray that in steadfast conformity to the path 
of duty we may be set free to serve—to give to the community the 

* This Committee was prosecuted in May 1916 for the publication of a leaflet. 
Repeal the Act , and each member was fined £100, in default two months’ imprison¬ 
ment. The sentence was confirmed on appeal, and five members, two of them 
Friends, went to prison. Three (one an older Friend) paid the fine. It was at 
this trial that the Crown Prosecutor (Mr. Bodkin) said that: “ War would become 
impossible, if the view that war was wrong and that it was wrong to support the 
carrying on of war, was held generally” ( Manchester Guardian , May 18, 1916). 
For trying to circulate this statement as a poster a peace propagandist was after¬ 
wards heavily fined. Two women peace-workers (one a Friend) in the summer of 
1916 served nearly three months’ imprisonment (in lieu of a £50 fine), for 
distributing leaflets against war. These activities were, of course, undertaken 
by the Friends concerned as individuals. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 


509 

fullest service of which we are capable—each one in the way of 
God’s appointing.” 

In March the earlier of the two Military Service Acts began 
to operate, and those Friends who had hoped that the provisions 
of the Act and Regulations, if wisely administered, would be 
compatible with liberty of conscience, were grieviously disappointed 
as they watched the proceedings of the tribunals. An editorial 
in the Friend , on March 10th, had put forward the various forms 
of national service in which Friends might well engage : “ Red 
Cross work, sanitary and hospital service, poor relief, education, 
constructive social work, industrial welfare work, assistance of 
disabled soldiers, interned aliens or prisoners, work on the land, 
and so forth.” The writer had not anticipated that many tribunals 
would sweep most of his catalogue, notably education, on one side 
as “ not of national importance.” Many tribunals honestly tried 
to do the work assigned to them, but the injustices and inconsistencies 
of others roused widespread indignation in the country, and their 
treatment of the conscientious objector in particular was an open 
scandal. Friends, indeed, fared better than others, and there was 
an obvious disinclination to admit that a conscientious objection 
to war could exist outside the Society, but even Friends fared well 
or ill according to the accident of locality. One would receive 
absolute exemption, another would be sent into the Army, a third 
exempted on the ground of his relief work in France, while a fourth 
was refused permission to return to the same work. One, not trained 
to teach, might be sent to a school from which an experienced 
teacher was ordered to agricultural work. Some were urged to 
work at munitions, and others called hypocrites because firms in 
which they were employed had some more or less remote connection 
with Army work. Some were “ old enough to know better,” others 
“ too young to have a conscience ”—the anomalies were endless. 

Exactly two months after the editorial just mentioned, the 
Friend framed a strong indictment of the tribunals for their lack 
of knowledge and understanding of the Act they administered, 
for their deplorable delay and confusion in arranging work of 
“ national importance ” for those who would undertake it, for their 
lack in many cases of simple justice, and their failure to understand 
any religious objection to war, a failure which sometimes passed 
into open contempt and mockery. 

In the case of Friends the changed position of the Friends’ 


5 io 


CONCLUSION 


Ambulance Unit occasioned considerable difficulty and friction 
with the tribunals. 1 At the suggestion of the military authorities 
the Committee of the Unit had undertaken to provide ambulance 
work or other service of national importance for Friends and others 
closely connected with Friends, if they were absolutely willing 
of their own accord to take up the work. A Government Committee, 
under the Hon. T. W. H. Pelham, was intended to meet the case 
of other conscientious objectors. Unfortunately the voluntary 
proviso was ignored by many tribunals, and on May 12th the 
Committee of the Unit had to record in the Friend its strong objec¬ 
tion to “ attempts of the tribunals or military representatives to 
offer or appear to offer service with the Unit as an alternative to 
absolute exemption.” In fact, some tribunals only offered exemption 
conditionally on joining the Unit, and some went further, insisting 
that the appellant must enter the ambulance section. The men who 
had already volunteered for the Unit, and those employed abroad 
on war relief, strongly resented this attempt to force all Friends’ 
service into one mould. 2 

The Editor of the Friend wrote on May 19th : “We are not 
willing, though differing in method, to be pitted against each other. 
We decline to be divided. Some Friends undertake one form of service 
and some another, each according to his conscience, but all forms 
of true service spring from a common source, and may be inspired 
by one and the same spirit.” Some young Friends even resigned 
from the Unit and came home to share the lot of those not sheltered 
by their work. The difficulty was added to by criticism of the Unit’s 
relation to the Army, on the lines already sketched ; in August, a 
Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings, appointed to inquire 
into the whole matter, reported as follows :— 3 

“After recognizing the great help given by the F.A.U. to 
many of our young men, it was pointed out that the Unit was an 
independent organization, not answerable to the Meeting for Suffer¬ 
ings, but that it was by outsiders generally regarded as officially 
under the care of Friends. Abroad it formed part of the organization 

J Friend , March 31st, April 7th, August 18, 1916 (statements by members 
of the Committee), and July 14th, August nth (discussions in the Meeting for 
Sufferings). 

1 Vide Friend , April 7th (statement by some members of the F.A.U.) ; 
Proceedings of Yearly Meeting 1916, p. 37 (letter from men of the Friends’ War 
Victims’ Relief Expedition). 

3 Friend , August n, 1916. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 


5 ii 

that serves the Army, though not under Army control. Captain 
Maxwell 1 has an honorary commission in the Army, and the close 
touch with both officers and privates has given rise to a code of 
behaviour closely approximating to that of the Army. There is an 
understanding with members abroad that they should not undertake 
peace propaganda, and members at home, belonging to the general 
section are expected not to come into opposition to the Defence 
of the Realm Act. Men drafted from the Army into Reserve W 
and sent to report to the Unit cease to belong to the Army on being 
received into the Unit. The Committee brought up against the 
essential difficulty of conducting a Quaker organization in co¬ 
operation with the military authorities engaged in actual warfare 
or with machinery set up by the Government in administering the 
Military Service Acts, was not able to offer any satisfactory 
solution.” 

In the discussion the splendid work of the ambulance men 
was fully recognized, as also the fact that the Committee of the 
Unit had no wish to be used in the interests of compulsion. The 
General Service Section was, however, criticized because it created 
a distinction between Friends accepting and refusing service in it, 
and between Friends and other objectors ; secondly, because in 
fact, though not in the intention of its organizers, it was adopted 
by the tribunals as part of the machinery for working the Acts, to 
which most Friends were utterly opposed. The Section consisted 
of Friends, or those closely connected with Friends, exempted 
conditionally by the tribunals and referred to the Unit, who were 
either physically unfit for ambulance service or unwilling to enter 
work so closely connected with the war. They were mostly placed 
in agriculture, though a few found openings in education, 
Y.M.C.A. work, or under the War Relief and Emergency Com¬ 
mittees. By the end of the war the membership of the Section 
was four hundred and forty-two. 2 

There were, however, enough incompetent tribunals to bring 
about the result that, during the first six months of their administra¬ 
tion, more than 2,500 conscientious objectors had been assigned to 
combatant or non-combatant duties in the Army, arrested and handed 

1 The commander of the Unit abroad, who was not a Friend. He took 
command after the Friend who was its original founder passed to the British- 
Italian Unit. 

» For statements of the Unit’s position and the status of the General Service 
Section vide The Friends' Ambulance Unity pp. 186 foil., 245 foil. 


512 


CONCLUSION 


over to the military authorities. A small number were Friends, or 
Attenders at Friends’ meetings. Of these some half-dozen were 
among the conscientious objectors sent in May 1916 to Harwich 
Redoubt, where they were put in irons (“ rigid handcuffs ”) and 
kept on a bread and water diet for disobedience to military orders. 
Later in the month they were among the forty sent to France. There, 
being in the war zone, they were sentenced to twenty-eight days 
of ‘ Field Punishment No. 1,” usually given to men on active service 
who sleep or are drunk on guard. For three days out of every four 
they were fastened for two separate hours to a fixed object. “ They 
are either fastened to a gun-wheel, or handcuffed, and their arms 
fastened above the level of their heads to an iron bar. They can 
move up and down for the length of the bar, but, of course, their 
arms are kept in the same position.” 1 At Boulogne, four objectors 
were court-martialled, and on June 15th, “on the top of a high 
hill overlooking the sea ” they received sentence “ to suffer death 
by being shot,” which was at once commuted to ten years’ penal 
servitude. 2 3 Similar sentences were pronounced on June 19th on 
thirty more. This was after repeated assurances in Parliament 
that the death sentence would not be pronounced on conscientious 
objectors. 3 


1 Friend , May 26,1916, cp. the “ tying neck and heels ” and “ bucking-down ” 
of Chapters XII, XVI. The punishment was abolished in 1923. 

* Friend ^, June 30th and July 7, 1916. The Friends and Attenders sentenced 
were Howard Marten, Cornelius Barritt, Harry E. Stanton, Adam Priestly, and 
J. F. Murnn. Rendel Wyatt was sentenced to one year’s hard labour. All were 
transferred to civil prisons. 

3 House of Commons, June 22, 1916. Mr. Barnes said a report was current 
m the Lobbies that four conscientious objectors in France had been sentenced to 
death, and there was a very general feeling of resentment that such a report should 
be abroad after the many statements from the Front Bench in regard to the treat¬ 
ment of these men, and after the promises which had been made that they would 
be transferred to the civil power, and the assurances which had been given that 
they would not be sent to France at all. He could not believe the report to be 
true, and he raised the question in order to give the Under-Secretary for War 
an opportunity to deny it. 

Fhe Under-Secretary of State for War {Mr. Tennant) said many rumours with 
regard to the treatment of conscientious objectors had been circulated, and the 
great majority of them were untrue. He assumed the present rumour was one of 
these. He had no information on the subject, but he would investigate it and give 
full information to the House. ... I can assure my Right Hon. Friend who has 
put the question that there is no intention of dealing with them in any way harshly, 
and that there will be no question of their being sentenced to death. 

°u J ? T nC 26 ’ I916 * Mr * Tennant > in "Pty to questions by 

Mr. Morrell, Mr. T. E. Harvey, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Snowden, and Sir W. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 513 

By this time so many were under military detention or in civil 
prisons that the Government began tardily to arrange for a re-hearing 
of their cases and for the provision of some form of alternative service. 
By what was known as the “ Home Office Scheme,” work was 
offered under conditions midway between free employment and 
convict labour, and up to the end of October accepted by about 
five hundred and fifty of the men concerned. Some were sent 
to camps for quarrying, road-making and forestry, others, unfit 
for such labour, to “ deprisoned ” gaols, where they were 
employed on mail-bag making and other forms of what is usually 
prison labour. 

The Yearly Meeting at the end of May, knowing that Friends 
were in France in the hands of the military, but closing before 
news of the courts-martial had been received, put the existing 
situation on record : 

“Throughout our Yearly Meeting we have had continually in 
mind the fact that some of our members are in prison, or otherwise 
suffering for loyalty to conscience in respect of the peace testimony 
which has been ours from the earliest days of the Society. 

“God has honoured us by counting these our dear Friends 
worthy to suffer shame for His name. We assure them of our 
loving remembrance and prayers that they may receive the Divine 
support in this their hour of trial.” 

This Yearly Meeting also reaffirmed the entire opposition 
of its members to compulsory military service, and their desire for 
the repeal of the Acts. At the suggestion of a Friend the Clerk 
stated in plain terms for the information of the public that the Yearly 
Meeting was the body representing the whole 20,000 Friends in 
its membership. 

Much time and thought was given to the discussion of war 
in its relations to the social order. The Epistle (sent “To 
Friends the World over and all who seek the Way of Life”) 
declared : 

“ There is warfare for all of us in this world, but against whom 
and to what end ? It is not our brother men who are our enemies, 

Byles, said it was the case that courts-martial held in France had sentenced certain 
men professing conscientious objections to death for offences punishable by death 
under the Army Act. In all these thirty-four cases the sentence had been 
commuted to penal servitude by the Commander-in-Chief in France.” 

Vide also Hansard (Parliamentary Reports, House of Commons), January 18th, 
May nth, May 15th, May 30th, June 1st, June 20, 1916. 

33 


CONCLUSION 


5 H 

but the germs of disease that destroy men’s bodies and the false ideas 
and evil passions that destroy their souls. We strive for a state of 
society in which the good of all may be achieved by the self-denying 
labour of each. . . . The most real and abiding force in human 
affairs was seen in operation in the life, death, and rising again of 
Jesus Christ. That force we call the Love of God.” 

The “ absolutist ” conscientious objectors were gradually 
transferred to civil prisons, where Quakers were allowed to act 
as “ chaplains,” visiting those who asked for them (not only Friends) 
and holding meetings for worship. In April 1919 (five months 
after the armistice) those who had served two or more years’ hard 
labour were released, and by the end of July all conscientious objectors 
were out of prison. Several, Friends and others, have since devoted 
themselves to the cause of prison reform. 

Towards the end of 1917 Friends found that their convictions 
brought them again into conflict with war-time administration. 
A new Regulation (27 C) had been introduced under the Defence 
of the Realm Act, which made it illegal to print, publish, or distribute 
any leaflet about the war or the making of peace which had not been 
submitted to the Official Press Bureau. The Meeting for Sufferings 
on December 7, 1917, after considering the matter, embodied its 
decision in the following minute : 

“ The executive body of the Society of Friends, after serious 
consideration, desires to place on record its conviction that the portion 
of the recent regulations requiring the submission to the censor of 
all leaflets dealing with the present war and the making of peace 
is a grave danger to the national welfare. The duty of every good 
citizen to express his thoughts on the affairs of his country is hereby 
endangered, and further, we believe that Christianity requires the 
toleration of opinions not our own, lest we should unwittingly hinder 
the workings of the Spirit of God. 

“ Beyond this there is a deeper issue involved. It is for Christians 
a paramount duty to be free to obey and to act and speak in accord 
with the law of God, a law higher than that of any State, and no 
Government official can release men from this duty. 

“ We realize the rarity of the occasions on which a body of 
citizens find their sense of duty to be in conflict with the law, and 
it is with a sense of the gravity of the decision that the Society of 
Friends must, on this occasion, act contrary to the regulation, and 
continue to issue literature on war and peace without submitting 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 515 

it to the censor. It is convinced that in thus standing for spiritual 
liberty it is acting in the best interests of the nation.” 

The various Friends’ Committees continued to publish pamphlets, 
and finally the chairman and secretaries of the Friends’ Service 
Committee were prosecuted for a leaflet, “ A Challenge to 
Militarism,” on the subject of the imprisoned conscientious objectors. 
The trial took place at the Guildhall in May 1918 while the Yearly 
Meeting was sitting. The Meeting passed a minute in support of 
the Meeting for Sufferings and the committee, and on the second 
day of the trial adjourned its sitting in order that the Clerk might 
give evidence and other Friends attend. “While the Alderman 
was out of court the Quakers, who filled the plain little room, were 
invited to engage in silent prayer, and for a time the police court 
was a Quakers’ Meeting.” 1 The two men defendants (Harrison 
Barrow and Arthur Watts) were sentenced to six months’ imprison¬ 
ment, Edith M. Ellis to £100 fine and fifty guineas costs, or three 
months’ imprisonment. Their appeal a month later was dismissed, 
and all three went to prison. At the close of the appeal a barrister, 
on behalf of a few Friends who supported the war, expressed their 
personal disapproval of the attitude of the Meeting for Sufferings 
and the Friends’ Service Committee. 

In Australia and New Zealand, at the outbreak of war, the 
authorities suspended the penalty of imprisonment for refusal 
to train, although prosecutions and fines continued. In response, 
the Freedom League and other anti-militarist associations gave up 
active propaganda. The small bodies of Friends were anxious to 
join in war service. Seventeen young men came over to join in 
the relief and ambulance work in France and Belgium, some of 
them working their passage across. A few in membership enlisted, 
and at least two did so (in the Army Medical Corps) because their 
means did not allow them to join the Friends’ ambulance work, 
and the funds raised by Friends in Australia were not sufficient 
to help all those anxious to share in it.* Australian Friends also 
visited the aliens in internment camps, and gave some help to their 
families. The General Meeting of September 1915 published a 

* Manchester Guardian , May 24, 1918. 

* An estimate of Friends who enlisted, given in the Friend , January 29, 1915, 
said that there were eleven cases “ in the colonies,” i.e. not only in Australasia. 
Some of the Friends who returned to do relief work later suffered under the Military 
Service Acts. 


516 CONCLUSION 

minute urging the claims of war relief, and clearly explaining the 
standpoint of Friends. 

“ While we fully concede the claims of our country to the 
highest service we can render, we do not allow that for us this can 
be of a military character, or such as opposes itself to the claims 
of humanity in general. . . . There are many other forms of service 
having no connection with work for war victims, and perhaps hardly 
to be designated national, which are not the less commendable on 
that account. There is much need for sympathy and for practical 
help all around us : harvests have to be gathered in, and the common 
work of the world to be done, and not least of all does the world need 
to be put in train for such a settlement when the war shall end as 
will be reasonable, just, and abiding.” 

In both the Commonwealth and Dominion a “ War Census ” 
was taken in 1915. As in England, Friends filled up the form, 
adding a statement that for conscientious reasons they could not 
undertake military service. In New Zealand, in November 1915, 
Egerton Gill, a Friend and Secretary of the local “ Freedom League,” 
was fined £50 (under the War Regulations Act) for “publishing 
matter likely to interfere with recruiting.” He had issued a circular 
to members of the League and sympathizers suggesting the above 
course in filling the registration form, and had sent copies of a 
resolution of the branch to Members of Parliament. The advice 
was identical with that issued by English and Australian Friends 
living under similar war legislation. The fine was confirmed on 
appeal, and his office was raided by the military and the papers 
of the League seized. The house of an English Friend visiting 
New Zealand was also raided in her absence, but the papers con¬ 
fiscated, which included the minute books of the meeting, were 
later returned to her. 

In the summer of 1916 a Military Service Act was passed in 
New Zealand compulsorily enrolling all men aged from 20 to 46 
years in the Reserve. The Act was supported by severe penalties. 
A conscience-clause exempted, from combatant service only, adherents 
of a Church whose tenets forbid military service. Friends protested 
against this privileged and qualified exemption ; out of the small 
body twenty-one Members and Attenders served terms of imprison¬ 
ment, eleven were exempted on medical grounds, and twelve served 
in the R.A.M.C. Australia maintained its voluntary army through 
the war. Since then Australasian Friends have not suffered from any 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 


5 i 7 

rigorous enforcement of the Defence Acts, although refusal to train 
entails a disqualification for Government appointments. 

During the first three years of the war American Friends were 
outside its main current, though many were roused to a deeper 
interest in the peace testimony and a keener examination of its 
bearings. A Peace Conference was held at Winona Lake in July 
1915, called by a group of young Friends representing the chief 
branches of the Society. They adopted a statement of peace principles, 
which, though not the utterance of an official body, was the first 
important statement by American Friends during the war. A 
Continuation Committee appointed by this Conference did good 
service in strengthening the peace feeling of Friends throughout 
the country, and in securing the appointment of the American 
Friends’ Service Committee when the United States entered the 
war in April 1917. 1 “ Friends as a whole were definitely and often 
quite actively upon the side of that great body of public opinion 
which favoured American neutrality.”* Soon after the declaration 
of war the Five Years’ Meeting (representing thirteen “ Orthodox ” 
Yearly Meetings) reaffirmed Friends’ views on peace. Careful 
inquiry led the late Dr. Allen C. Thomas to the conclusion that 
“ no meeting of those calling themselves Friends, and certainly no 
Yearly Meeting, failed to uphold the ancient testimony of Friends.” 
He added, however, “ notwithstanding the supreme devotion of 
some and an unchanged official attitude, the trial found many with 
unformed convictions and inability to see the vital issues involved .”3 

When compulsion was introduced, the Government hoped to 
meet the case of the conscientious objector by a clause in the 
Selective Service Act granting exemption, from combatant service 
only, to any member of religious sects such as Mennonites, Dunkards, 
and Friends, whose own personal convictions were in agreement 
with the principles of his Church, “ but no person so exempted shall 
be exempted from service in any capacity that the President shall 

1 Rufus Jones, A Service of Love in War Time (The Macmillan Co., 1920)* 
describes the war work and suffering of American Friends. Vide also Thomas, 
History of Friends in America , 1919 edition. 

> All Friends' Conference , 1920. Report of Commission VII. (American), 

p. 7. 

3 Thomas, History of Friends in America 1919, pp. * 45 > *53- The latest 
returns give the number of Friends in the United States as “ Orthodox ” 97,000, 
“ Hicksite ” 18,000, “ Conservative ” 3,600. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (4,460) 
is included in the “ Orthodox ” return, but does not belong to the Five Years’ 
Meeting. 


5 i 8 CONCLUSION 

declare to be non-combatant.” The President’s ruling included 
under non-combatant service, medical, “ quarter-master ” (i.e. Army 
Service) and engineering work. About two-thirds of the six thousand 
conscientious objectors conscripted accepted this compromise, and 
according to one estimate the same proportion of Friends to whom 
the choice was offered. The solution was not acceptable, however, 
to the mass of the membership of some meetings, many of the young 
men who had been drafted, the leaders and spokesmen of most of the 
Yearly Meetings, and the American Friends’ Service Committee.” 1 

This Committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. Rufus Jones, 
consisted of representatives of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, of the 
Hicksite ” body, of the Five Years’ Meeting, and later of the 
“Wilburite” Friends and of the Mennonite Church. Before 
the draft law came into force the Committee sent a letter to the 
young men Friends affected, expressing the hope that “you are 
so deeply grounded in the principles of Friends that your conscience 
will lead you to act consistently with these principles.” At the same 
time the Committee bent its energies to provide some form of war 
service which a sincere Friend could undertake, an aim already 
adopted by the Philadelphia Young Friends’ Committee. The first 
idea, the formation of an Ambulance Unit, proved impossible, and 
a plan of co-operation with the English War Relief Committee 
and the civilian section of the American Red Cross was developed. 
The Service Committee resolved to recruit and train one hundred 
men to serve as relief workers under the general control of the Red 
Cross. A call for volunteers sent out in June, quickly resulted in 
about two hundred applications. In July one hundred men assembled 
to train at Haverford College, and between September and November 
they sailed on various boats to France. Six women Friends had 
already gone, at the end of June, to Russia to join the English Friends 
at Buzuluk. This international service from the first was necessarily 
affected by the conscription laws. As the drafts were progressive, 
nearly two hundred Friends who had gone to the work in France 
were afterwards drafted, and many were put on the deserters’ list. 
Many others who had volunteered and trained for relief were called 
up before they could start. 

The Friends Service Committee acted as an intermediary with 
1 All Friends' Conference, Report of (American) Commission V. p. q 
Another estimate (Commission VII. p. 13) was that one half of the Friends who 
claimed exemption accepted non-combatant service. But all calculations are only 
approximate. * 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 


5 i 9 

the War Department on behalf of these cases. They procured 
exemptions for the Friends already in France, and finally the Depart¬ 
ment agreed “that all drafted Friends who were conscientious 
objectors should be allowed to serve in a civilian capacity under 
the Friends’ Service Committee. The first Friends were released 
for this service just about a year after the proposition was first made, 
and nine months after the promise of the Secretary for War that 
such a plan should be worked out. The confidence and responsibility 
placed in the Friends’ Committee was much broader than that 
originally contemplated, in that all conscientious objectors were to 
be turned over to the Friends’ Committee up to the number which 
that committee would be willing to accept. An extensive programme 
of farm work in the United States, for men not needed for service 
abroad, was planned, but the armistice rendered it unnecessary.” 1 

In all two hundred conscientious objectors were offered by the 
Government to the Friends’ Service Committee for reconstruction 
service in France, of whom ninety-nine were actually released from 
the military camps in which they were confined. Some others were 
given farm furlough at home. Of the ninety-nine, fifty-four were 
Friends and about fifty more, discharged after the armistice, also 
went to France. Out of five hundred and twenty-seven sentenced 
to military prisons only thirteen were Friends. Commission VII 
of the All Friends’ Conference made an effort to compile statistics 
of the Friends subject to conscription, of those who served in the 
Army and Navy, of those exempted on various grounds, and of those 
who were conscientious objectors, but it found that complete figures 
could not be obtained. As the majority of the Society lived in rural 
areas, many young Friends received “deferred classification” for 
agriculture. The Commission felt that any attempt to compare 
the action of English and American Friends would be misleading. 
“ Not only were the circumstances leading to war and to conscription 
in the two countries quite different, but the provisions for partial 
or complete exemption in the two Military Acts were far from 
parallel.” 3 It must not be forgotten that there were members above 
military age who accepted war contracts or subscribed to war loans. 
In the opinion of this Commission the Mennonites of the United 
States held more uniformly to the peace testimony and suffered 
more for it than did the Society of Friends. Dr. Rufus Jones also 

* All Friends ’ Conference , Report of (American) Commission VII. pp. 15-16. 

» Ibid., Commission V. p. 10. 


520 


CONCLUSION 


pays a warm tribute to the Mennonites. “Their young men,” 
he says, 1 “ stood the test of the camps with insight and with much 
bravery. They had the backing of their Church and they were 
conscious that they were its standard-bearers. They became closely 
united in fellowship with our men in the camps, . . . nearly sixty 
of their members went abroad under our Committee. They were 
excellent workers, and they brought a fine spirit of devotion and 
co-operation to the Mission. They merged with the Friends with 
a natural grace, and we always thought of them as a part of ourselves. 
The Mennonites in every part of America contributed with liberality 
to the work, sending a total of more than 200,000 dollars.” 

Very few conscientious objectors on religious grounds took up 
the “ absolutist ” position. The Friends in military camps had mostly 
already been accepted by the Friends’ Service Committee, and were 
only waiting to be released. The few Friends, and the considerable 
number of Mennonites in military prisons, reached them mainly 
through maladministration of the Act by subordinate officers. They 
were sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from five to forty 
years, most being over twenty years. Both in camps and in prisons 
there were shocking instances of ill-treatment.2 In the spring and 
summer of 1919 a Board of Inquiry, appointed by the Government, 
visited the camps, and through its means most of the Quakers were 
released on relief furlough. There were not more than one or two 
“absolutists” in the English sense. This was partly because the 
work offered as alternative service was of real value, and also of an 
adventurous and attractive character, partly because there was no 
national anti-conscription movement, and because American Friends, 
as a rule, are more widely separated from Socialists (who provided 
most of the “absolutist” objectors) than those in England. 

The establishment by the Government of compulsory military 
training the “ Student Army Training Corps ”—in all universities 
and colleges presented another problem to Friends. Of the ten 
Quaker colleges only one—Swarthmore—under pressure from 
its Board of Managers, but not without protest, established a corps, 
but as many students were not Friends, the other colleges, especially 
Haverford, had to face the loss of those who went elsewhere for 
training. 

1 A Service of Love in War-time , p. 124. 

■ For fuller description, vide A Service of Love, pp. 8j foil, j History of 
Friends in America, p. 249 ; Graham, Conscription and Conscience, pp. 376 foil. 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 521 

The War Relief work in France was carried out in the fullest 
sense as a joint effort, both by the English and American Committees 
and by the workers of both nationalities in the field. Its character 
has already been described. About four hundred and seventy-five 
American Friends (including twenty-five women) and sixty Men- 
nonites were engaged in it during the last year of the war and 
the period after the armistice. Large contributions of money 
and clothing were made by Friends of all branches and by 
the Mennonite body. In 1919 American Friends undertook 
varied relief work in Serbia—rebuilding, agriculture, medical 
aid, and the care of war orphans. In Poland and Russia they 
co-operated with the English Missions ; in the autumn of 1919? 
at the request of Mr. Hoover, they undertook the responsibility for 
child-feeding throughout Germany, as the agents of the American 
Relief Commission. They were chosen partly because of their 
previous experience, but also on the express ground that the Quakers 
had won the confidence of all sides in their relief activities. Later 
similar work was carried on in the famine areas of Russia. 

The better knowledge of one another gained by English and 
American Friends from their fellowship in joint effort led, during 
the war, to the proposal that an international Friends’ peace con¬ 
ference should be held at its close. The plan was warmly welcomed, 
careful preparations were made, and from August 12 to 20, 1920, 
there met at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, the old headquarters 
of the Society in London, the first “All Friends’ Conference, 
to consider the nature and basis of our peace testimony, and 
its application to the needs of the world to-day.” More than 
a thousand Friends were present, from England, Scotland, Ireland, 
the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, 
Jamaica, China, Japan, India, Syria, Madagascar, France, Germany, 
Austria, Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark. In the previous 
two years Commissions of Friends in England and America had 
prepared an historical sketch and parallel reports on six aspects 
of the peace testimony : the Fundamental Basis ; National Life 
and International Relations ; Personal Life and Society ; Problems 
of Education ; the Life of the Society of Friends, and Methods of 
Propaganda. 

These reports, and the public “ Swarthmore Lecture” by 
Dr. Rufus Jones on “ The Nature and Authority of Conscience,” 
which opened the Conference, formed the basis of the discussions. 


522 


CONCLUSION 


The truth and vitality of the peace message and the importance 
of its implications in personal and national as well as international 
life, were reaffirmed by speaker after speaker. But more helpful 
than the opinions uttered or the conclusions reached was the stimulus 
of association between men and women of varied types and 
nationalities united in a common endeavour to seek truth in the light 
granted by the Spirit of God. 

With the All Friends’ Conference this account must close. 
It may serve to show that from the early days of the Society the 
peace testimony has been held as an integral part of its religious 
belief and practice. It was not based merely on the recorded teaching 
of the New Testament, although in full harmony with this, but 
it grew inevitably out of the conception of the inward light, the divine 
Spirit in the souls of men, that lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world. That Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, which leads into all 
truth, could never, if faithfully followed, lead men into hatred, 
revenge, deceit, cruelty, bloodshed, devastation, and all the host of 
evils bound up in war. Nor could its followers destroy their fellow 
men, children of the same Father, in each of whom there was a 
measure of the same Spirit. Nor again could the gloss of a theologian, 
nor the command of rulers and magistrates, stand against this inner 
conviction of the soul. The different testimonies were, to the early 
Friends, inter-related and all essential to the practice of true religion. 
Barclay, writing of the two against oaths and against war, says : 

There is so great a connection between these two precepts 
of Christ that as they were uttered and commanded by him at one 
and the same time, so the same way they were received by men of 
all ages, not only in the first promulgation by the little number of 
the disciples, but also, after the Christians increased, in the first 
three hundred years. Even so in the apostasy, the one was not left 
and rejected without the other ; and now again in the restitution 
and renewed practice of the Eternal Gospel, they are acknowledged 
as eternal unchangeable laws, properly belonging to the evangelical 
state and perfection thereof, from which, if any withdraw, he falls 
short of the perfection of a Christian man.” 

In words already quoted William Bayly declared that the 
peace testimony was not an opinion or judgment which may fail 
us, or in which we may be mistaken or doubt, but the infallible 
ground and unchangeable foundation of our religion (that is to say) 
Christ Jesus the Lord, that Spirit, Divine Nature or Way of Life, 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURT 523 

which God hath raised and renewed in us, in which we walk and 
in whom we delight to dwell.” 

Apart from the constant exposition in Epistles and other documents 
of the official bodies of Friends, the same testimony is borne by a host 
of individuals in the later generation of the Society. Thomas Chalk- 
ley, Thomas Story, John Bellers, John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, 
William Allen, Stephen Grellet, Jonathan Dymond, Joseph Sturge, 
Robert Spence Watson and Joshua Rowntree—these are only a few 
of the names that rise to memory in such a context. But more 
eloquent and convincing than any written or spoken word is the 
patient faithfulness of humble men and women who have lived 
unterrified in the midst of danger without resort to arms, and have 
undergone loss, imprisonment, shame, suffering, and death itself 
rather than forswear the principle of peace. The “conscientious 
objector ” is no new phenomenon. In England and Ireland, the 
West Indies, the American colonies, the United States, and 
Australasia, for two and a half centuries he has baffled all attempts 
at coercion, whether by legal penalties or brutal violence. 

In the face of this record of profession and practice some would 
maintain that the peace testimony is a mere individual preference 
to be held or abandoned by Friends at their pleasure, or would even 
condemn it as a modern error thrust among our accepted beliefs. 
To the latter position this book is intended as a reply. Those who 
uphold the former bring forward two or three inconsistencies of 
statement among early Friends, of which that of Isaac Penington 
is the most notable. (Penington, as has been explained, firmly 
maintained that Friends, owning obedience to the law of love, could 
not themselves bear arms or take part in war.) There are also the 
inconsistencies of action by Rhode Island and Pennsylvanian Friends 
holding office in time of war, and the address of 1746 congratulating 
George II on the defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion. This is the 
solitary instance of official inconsistency in the records of London 
Yearly Meeting ; three years later the Meeting for Sufferings 
clearly indentified itself with the peace views of Barclay’s Apology. 
In various wars a greater or smaller number of Friends in England 
or America have abandoned the peace position, but only in one case 
did the dissentients claim to represent the accepted doctrine of the 
Society, and these—the body of “ Free Quakers ” in the war of 
the Revolution—soon melted away. Up to the present time in 
England no effort has been made to modify the Queries and the 


CONCLUSION 


524 

Discipline, on the not infrequent occasions of their revision, in the 
direction of a less emphatic pronouncement on peace. The section, 
“Peace among the Nations,” in the Book of Discipline, is clear 
and unmistakable in its teaching, and for sixty years the Eighth 
Query has reminded Friends of the duty of faithfulness to the Chris¬ 
tian testimony against all war. 

It is sometimes suggested that in the last century Friends have 
shifted from the original ground of the testimony, and now base 
it rather on humanitarian and philanthropic arguments. No doubt 
the influences of the period of the Revolution and of Napoleon, 
from the diverse sources of evangelical Christianity and humanitarian 
philosophy, did largely affect the thought of Friends. But from the 
earliest period the two golden threads of love towards God and 
love towards man intertwine in the web of their belief and practice. 
There is much humanitarian sentiment in Barclay, much philanthropy 
in Bellers and Benezet. John Woolman combines a most purely 
spiritual basis for his condemnation of war with a most deeply 
humanitarian sympathy for those who sin or suffer in its toils. 

On the other hand, recent statements, whether by collective 
bodies of Friends or by individual conscientious objectors explaining 
their convictions to tribunal or court-martial, lay the main emphasis 
on spiritual and religious considerations so far as these can be separated 
from those of humanity and brotherly love. London Yearly Meeting 
in 1915 recalled in one of its minutes the basis of the testimony : 

It is not enough to be satisfied with a barren negative witness, 
a mere proclamation of non-resistance. We must search for a positive, 
vital, constructive message. Such a message, a message of supreme 
love, we find in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We 
find it in the doctrine of the indwelling Christ, that rediscovery of 
the early Friends, leading as it does to a recognition of the brother¬ 
hood of all men. Of this doctrine our testimony as to war and peace 
is a necessary outcome, and if we understand the doctrine aright, 
and follow it in its wide implications, we shall find that it calls to the 
peaceable spirit and the rule of love in all the broad and manifold 
relations of life.” 

The call was re-echoed in 1920 by the All Friends’ Conference 
in its “ Message to Friends and Fellow-Seekers.” 

The roots of war can be taken away from all our lives, as 
they were long ago in Francis of Assisi and John Woolman. Day 
by day let us seek out and remove every seed of hatred and of greed, 


THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 


525 

of resentment and of grudging in our own selves and in the social 
structure about us. Christ’s way of freedom replaces slavish obedience 
by fellowship. Instead of an external compulsion he gives an 
inward authority. Instead of self-seeking we must put sacrifice ; 
instead of domination, co-operation. Fear and suspicion must give 
place to trust and the spirit of understanding. Thus shall we more 
and more become friends to all men and our lives will be filled with 
the joy which true friendship never fails to bring. Surely this is the 
way in which Christ calls us to overcome the barriers of race and 
class and thus to make of all humanity a society of friends.” 







ft 
















» 


* 




APPENDICES 


APPENDIX A 


LIST OF SOLDIERS AND SAILORS WHO BECAME 
FRIENDS BEFORE THE YEAR 1660 

(Including ex-Soldiers and Sailors.) 


Date. Name. 

— Abell, Richard. 

1655. Ames, William (Royalist) 

1656. Anonymous, Gunner on Mermaid 

1651. Anonymous, Trooper after Battle 

of Worcester ... 

1656. Bacon, Christopher (Royalist) ... 
1658. Baker, Daniel (Navy) . 

1655. Bancroft, Major William 

— Barber, Captain William 

— Bamardiston, Giles 

— Barwick, Comet Robert... 

— Beal, Thomas. 

1652. Benson, Colonel ... 

— Billing, Edward. 

— Bishop, Captain George. 

1656. Braford, Edward 

— Bradford, Captain William 

— Brown, James. 


Reference. 

Joseph Smith’s Catalogue of 
Friends’ Books. 

Braithwaite, Beg. of Quakerism. 

Cal. State Pap., Dom ., 1656/7, 
p. 441. 

Fox, Journal. 

Sewell, History , p. 682. 

Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1658/9, 
P- x 39 

Besse, Sufferings (Ireland). 

First Publishers of Truth, 
p. 171. 

Sewell, p. 386. 

F.P.T., p. 294. 

Declaration of Suffering, p. 8, 
in D. 76, 20. 

F.P.T., p. 242. 

Fox, Journal. 

Besse, (Ireland). 

Fox, Journal. 

Fox, Journal. 


— Cary, John . 

— Clibbom, John. 

— Cook, Comet Edward ... 

— Corbett, William (Royalist) 

— Crisp, Stephen ... 

v __ Crook, John, “ Captain ” 

— Curtis, Thomas. 

527 


... F.P.T., p. 294. 

... Select Miscellanies, i. 197. 

... Besse (Ireland). 

... Besse. 

... Lyon Turner, Orig. Records of 
Nonconformity, i. 84. 

... Sewell, History. 


LIST OF SOLDIERS JND SJILORS 


528 

Date. Name. 

1657. Davenport, Capt.-Lieut.... 
1659. Davies, Quartermaster Daniel 
1657/8. Dell, Jonas 
v 1651. Dewsbury, William 

1653. Edmundson, William 

1657. Foster, Lieut. Matthew ... 

1655. Fox, George, the Younger 
— Fuce, Ensign Joseph 

' — Gibson, William... 

— Gilpin, Thomas. 

— Graham, John ... 

— Hobman, Samuel 
' — Holmes, Captain 

* — Hubberthom, Richard ... 

1659. Jones, Quartermaster Daniel 

1656. Killo, Ananias ... 

1656/7. Knowlman, Richard (Navy) 

1657. Langdall, Jonas ... 

— Lawrence, Capt. John ... 

1658. Levenes, John ... 

% 1655. Lilbume, John ... 

1657. Lurting, Thomas (Navy) 

— Luxford, Thomas 

' 1655. Malines, Robert. 

s 1656. Marcy, Daniel ... 

— Mason, John 
— Mead, William... 


1618. Milledge, Capt. Antony (Navy) 

1657. Millington, William 
1656. Mitchell, Lieut. Thomas 

s 1656. Moore, John . 

— Moorland, Capt. John ... 


Reference. 

... Clarke Papers, iii. 122. 

... Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1659. 
... Smith’s Catalogue. 

... Dewsbury, Works , pp. 45 foil. 

... Journal of W. Edmundson. 

... Swarth. MSS., iv. 237. 

... His own Works. 

... F.P.T., p. 162. 

... Sewell, History, p. 682. 

... G. Lyon Turner, Orig. 

Records , iii. 824. 

... F.P.T., p. 294. 

... F.P.T., p. 294. 

... Besse. 

... Besse. 

... Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1659. 

... Besse (Ireland). 

... Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1656/7, 
p. 326. 

... Swarth. MSS., iv. 237. 

... F.P.T., p. 171, 

... Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1658/9, 
p. 139. 

... Sewell, History. 

... Lurting, The Fighting Sailor, 
etc. 

... F.P.T., p. 265. 

... Besse (Ireland). 

... Besse (Ireland). 

... George Whitehead, Life. 

... William Penn, The People's 
Ancient and Just Liberties, 
etc. 

... Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1658/9, 
p. 139. 

... Swarth. MSS., iv. 237. 

... Besse (Ireland). 

... Besse (Ireland). 

... F.P.T., p. 249. 


LIST OF SOLDIERS JND SAILORS 


529 


Date. Name. 

1656. Morris, William... 
1655. Morris, Capt. William 
— Musgrave, Georg< 


Reference. 
Smith’s Catalogue. 
Besse (Ireland). 


1651. Naylor, James ... 

1653. Osborne, Colonel William 

1657. Parish, Thomas ... 

1659. Parker, William. 

— Phayre, Colonel ... 

1655. Pike, Corporal Richard ... 

— Pittway, Captain Edward 

— Pursloe, Captain... 

— Pyott, Captain Edward ... 

— Roe, Major Henry 
1657. Rowntree, Francis 

— Sansom, Oliver ... 

1 656/7. Shewed, Thomas (Navy) 

— Sicklemore, Capt. James... 
1657. Simpson, John ... 

1655. Smith, Richard ... 

— Stoddart, Captain Amor... 

1654. Stubbs, John 
1653. Stubbs, Thomas... 

— Taylor, Captain Thomas 

— Turner, Robert ... 

1655. Wall, James . 

— Walters, Thomas (Royalist) 

1657. Watkinson, Capt. George 
1657. Ward, Cornet . 

1652. Warde, Captain Henry ... 

-— Wastfield, Robert 

— Well, Capt.-Lieut. Thomas 
1652. Whitehead, John 

— Williams, Captain 

— Wilson, George ... 

— Wilson, William (Royalist) 


F.P.T., p. 294. 

Fox, Journal. 

Fox, Journal. 

Szvartk. MSS., iv, 237. 
F.P.T., p. 31. 

Letters of Early Friends. 

Besse (Ireland). 

F.P.T., p. 277. 

F.P.T., p. 293. 

Fox, Journal. 

Cal. State Pap., Dom. 

Swarth. MSS., iv. 237. 

Life, p. 203. 

Cal. State Pap., Dom., 1656/7, 
P . 548. 

F.P.T., p. 139. 

Swarth. MSS., iv. 237. 
F.P.T., p. 106. 

F.P.T., p. 165. 

Besse. 

F.P.T., p. 68. 

Fox, Journal. 

George Whitehead, Life. 

Besse. 

Fox, Journal, ii. 48. 

Swarth. MSS., iv. 237. 

Braithwaite, Beg. of Quakerism . 
Fox, Journal. 

Smith’s Catalogue. 

F.P.T., p. 281. 

Besse. 

Fox, Journal. 

Swarth. MSS., i. 293. 

Fox, Journal. 


34 








APPENDIX B 


THE TESTIMONY OF THE SOLDIERS, 1657 

Preliminary Note .—The captain, William Bradford, mentioned is apparently 
the same as Dewsbury’s visitor at Nottingham ( ante> p. 47). The manuscript 
is difficult to decipher, and it is not clear whether the signatory, Watkinson, 
is “ Geo.” (the captain of the troop) or “ Tho.” The former is more probable, 
as Fox, in his Journal ’ mentions that this year, during his visit to Scotland, 
“ Leu tenant Foster and Lt. Dove and Captain Watkinson was turned out 
of the army for owning truth and several other officers and soldiers, and 
because they would not put off their hats to them and said ‘ thee ’ and * thou * 
to them ” (Cambridge Journal , i. 308). Fox and Alexander Parker both 
carried on active work in Scotland during this autumn, and were eventually 
banished from the country. The name of the colonel of the regiment is 
generally read as Kilbume, but no such officer is otherwise known, and it 
is almost certainly Colonel Robert Lilbume (appointed Deputy Major- 
General for the northern counties in 1655), who was quartered at York 
in August 1657, and wrote thence on the fourth of the month, to the 
Admiralty Commissioners, that his regiment had been ordered to Scotland. 
Some delay, however, occurred, for on October 13 Captain William Peverell 
sent a petition to the Protector and Privy Council, stating that, as Major- 
General Lilbume’s regiment of horse much require money to pay for their 
quarters on their march to Scotland, he has been left behind to receive their 
pay. Since the soldiers’ testimony is dated October 20, the purge of the 
regiment must have been carried out immediately upon its arrival in Scotland ; 
or possibly the departure from York had been postponed in order to allow 
anyone who wished to withdraw from the ranks at a point nearer their 
homes. (Several of the names are still common in the North of England.) 
It is noteworthy that Monk’s order is dated October 14, the day after Fox 
appeared before the Council in Edinburgh. 1 

Swarthmore MSS iv. 23 7. 

A testimony of some of ye souldyers yt were turned out of ye army whoe 
owned ymselves to bee quakers 1657. 

In obedience to an order giuen forth under the hands of Jere. Smith 
by order from ye L. Genii Monck, bearing date ye 14th of October 1657 
wherein is written I desire yu also to certifie under yr hands wat Quakers 

1 Cal. State Papers , Dom. (1657), viii. 53. 

530 


THE TEST1M0NT OF THE SOLDIERS 


53 i 

ether officers or souldiers yu have in yr. troope. In answer theirunto, we 
whose names are here vnder written beinge officers & souldiers in Capt. Wm. 
Bradford & Capt. Geo. Watkinson their troopes in Coll. Robt. Lilbume 
his Regte of horse, doe certifie to all whom these may any way or in any 
wise conceme, that ye name of Quakers as it is by ye worlde given in much 
scome and derision to ye Children of ye Ld who believe in ye Light Xt 
Jesus and walke in ye same, wee dare not owne. But quakinge and tremblinge 
according to what the scriptures declares of wee doe owne, and wat they 
doe declare of by the power and workinge of Jesu Xt in our measures we 
witnes fulfilled in us. And if we should deny this before men we might rightly 
feare yt hee yt hath begun this good worke in us, might deny us before his 
father which is in heaven, accordinge to yt scripture he yt denyes me before 
men him will I deny before my father which is in heaven. And to the truth 
here of as by Xt Jesus, it is revailed in us, in ye pure feare, dread & power 
of ye etemall livinge God who made heauen and earth & knowes ye secrets 
of all harts are we made willinge to give this testimonie under our hands ye 
20 : day of ye 8 month cauled October in ye ye are 1657 

Mathew ffoster Geo. Watkinson 

Willm Millington Tho. Parish chaplin to ye troope 

fffancis Booth Jonas Langdall 

ffrancis Rountre 
John Simpson 

All these were turned out of ye Army by monke with many others wch 
were tender (in ye army) of Gods truth. 


APPENDIX C 

g ff to Olefer Croumull, 1654 

I, who am of the world called george ffox, doe deny the carrying or 
drawmg of any camall sword against any, or against thee Oliver Crumwell 
or any man in the presence of the lord god I declare it god is my wittnesse, 
by whom I am moved to give this forth for the truthes sake, from him 
whom the world calls george ffox, who is the son of God, who is sent to stand 
A wittnesse against all violence and against all the workes of darknesse, and 
to turne people from the darkenesse to the light, and to bring them from the 
occasion of the warre, and from the occassion of the Magistrates sword, 
which is A terrour to the evill doers which actes contrary to the light of 
the lord Jeus Christ, which is A praise to them that doe well, which is a 
protection to them, that doe well, and not the will and such souldiers that 
are putt m that place no false accussers must bee, no violence must doe, 
put bee content with their wages, and that Magistrate bears not the sword 
m vaine, from under the occasion of that sword I doe seeke to bring people 
my weapons are not camall but spirituall, And my kingdome is not of this 
world, therefore with the camall weapon I doe not fight, but am from those 
things dead, from him who is not of the world, called of the world by the 
name george ffox, and this I am ready to seale with my blood, and this I 
am moved to give forth for the truthes sake, who A wittnesse stands against 
all unrighteousnesse, and all ungodlynesse, who A sufferer is for the righteous 
seed sake, waiteing for the redemption of it, who A crowne that is mortall 
seekes not for, that fadeth away, but in the light dwells, which comprehends 
that Crowne, which light is. the condemna^on of all such; in which Light 
I wittnesse the Crowne that is Immortall that fades not away, from him who 
to all your soulls is A friend, for establishing of righteousnesse and cleansseing 
the Land of evill doers, and A wittnesse against all wicked inventions of men 
and murderous plotts, which Answered shall be with the Light in all your 
Consciences, which makes no Covenant with death, to which light in you 
all I speake, and am clear. 7 

ff. g. 

who is of the world called George ffox 
who A new name hath which the world 
knows not. 

Wee are witnesses of this Testimony, whose names in the flesh is called 
Tho: Aldem. Robert Creven.i 

x Cambridge Journal, , i. 1-162, and note p, 425* 

532 


G FF TO OLEFER CROUMULL , 1654 533 

Note .—The expressions in this document were early fastened upon by 
opponents of Quakerism, and in Ellwood’s edition of the Journal only a very 
condensed quotation was given. The whole declaration, however, was re¬ 
printed in facsimile in 1836 during the “ Beaconite Controversy ” (in which 
the value of early Quaker teaching was attacked) by Elisha Bates, 1 who con¬ 
sidered it the “ outcome of a disordered imagination.” On the other hand, it 
was reported to Fox that its first reader, the Protector, took no exception to it. 
“ My Lord says you are not a foole and said hee never saw such a paper 
in his life.” 2 This may, however, refer to the second letter of personal advice. 
In regard to the expression “ who is the son of God,” the Editor of the 
Cambridge Journal writes in his note on the document: “ Probably more 
has been read into these words than they were ever intended to convey. 
It must be remembered that Fox’s mind was not trained to accurate theo¬ 
logical expression,” and he refers to Romans viii. 14, and John x. 34-6 
as the probable inspiration for such a use of the phrase. See also T. E. 
Harvey’s Introduction to the Cambridge Journal , pp. xxiv-xxvi, for in¬ 
stances of the unguarded expressions of early Friends before the fall of James 
Naylor had taught them the need for soberness and restraint. 

1 In his Appeal to the Society of Friends. 

* Captain Drury to Fox, Camb. Journal , i. 169. 


APPENDIX D 


ADDRESS FROM THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY 
OF FRIENDS TO THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA 


To Nicholas , Emperor of all the Russias. 

May it please the Emperor, 

. We, the undersigned members of a Meeting representing the 
religious Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers) in Great Britain, 
venture to approach the Imperial presence under a deep conviction of 
religious duty and m the constraining love of Christ our Saviour. We are 
moreover, encouraged to do so by the many proofs of condescension and’ 
Christian kindness manifested by thy late illustrious brother, the Emperor 
Alexander, as well as by thy honoured mother, to some of our brethren 
m religious profession. 

H: is well known that, apart from all political consideration, we have, 
as a Christian Church, uniformly upheld a testimony against war, on the 
simple ground that it is utterly condemned by the precepts of Christianity 
as well as altogether incompatible with the spirit of its Divine Founder 
who is emphatically styled the “ Prince of Peace.” This conviction we 
have repeatedly pressed upon our rulers, and often, in the language of bold, 
but respectful remonstrance, have we urged upon them the maintenance 

Government ^ ^ P ° llC7, aS wel1 as the manif ' e st duty of a Christian 

And now, O great Prince, permit us to express the sorrow which fills 
ur hearts, as Christians and as men, m contemplating the probability of 
war m any portion of the Continent of Europe. Deeply to be deplored 

a f e were that P eace 'Y hich to a very large extent has happily 
prevailed for so many years exchanged for the unspeakable horrors of war 
with all its attendant moral evil, and physical suffering 

15 not our , busin f s > nor d ° we presume to offer any opinion upon the 
question now at issue between the Imperial Government of Russia and that 
of any other country; but estimating the exalted position in which Divine 

u P r d r e haS paced thee ’ v and the SoIemn responsibilities devolving 
hee L n . 0t ° nly , as “ «“*% potentate, but also as a believer in thaf 
Gospel which proclaims peace on earth ” and “ good will towards men ” 
we implore Him by whom “kings reign and prLes decree justice” so 

tLrfh hy , heart *° d ' rect thy councils at this momentous crisis, 
that thou mayest practically exhibit to the nations, and even to those who 

534 


ADDRESS TO THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA 535 

do not profess the “ like precious faith ” the efficacy of the Gospel of 
Christ, and the universal application of His command : “ Love your enemies; 
bless them that curse you ; do good to them that hate you; and pray for 
them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the 
children of your Father which is in heaven.” 

The more fully the Christian is persuaded of the justice of his own 
cause, the greater his magnanimity in the exercise of forbearance. May 
the Lord make thee the honoured instrument of exemplifying this true 
nobility; thereby securing to thyself and to thy vast dominions that true 
glory and those rich blessings which could never result from the most 
successful appeal to arms. 

Thus, O mighty Prince, may the miseries and devastation of war be 
averted; and in that solemn day when “ everyone of us shall give account 
of himself to God,” may the benediction of the Redeemer apply to thee, 
“ Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God,” 
and so mayest thou be permitted through a Saviour’s love to exchange an 
earthly for a heavenly crown—“ a crown of glory which shall not fade 
away.” 


APPENDIX E 


THE PROTEST OF THE GERMAN FRIENDS 
AGAINST SLAVERY 

This is to the Monthly Meeting held at Richard WorrelVs. 

These are the reasons why we are against the traffic in the bodies of 
men, as followeth: Is there any that would be done or handled in this 
manner viz. to be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life ? How 
fearful and faint-hearted are many on the sea when they see a strange vessel, 
being afraid it should be a Turk, and they should be taken, and sold for 
slaves into Turkey. Now what is this better than Turks do ? Yea, rather 
is it worse for them, which say they are Christians; for we hear that the 
most part of such negroes are brought hither against their will and consent, 
and that many of them are stolen. Now, though they are black, we cannot 
conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, than it is to have other 
white ones. There is a saying, that we should do to all men like as we would 
be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent, or 
colour they are. And those who steal and rob men, and those who buy or 
purchase them, are they not all alike ? There is liberty of conscience here, 
which is right and reasonable; and there ought to be likewise liberty of 
the body, except of evil doers which is another case. But to bring men 
hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against. In 
Europe there are many oppressed for conscience’ sake; and here there are 
those oppressed which are of a black colour. And we who know that men 
must not commit adultery—some do commit adultery in others, separating 
wives from their husbands and giving them to others; and some sell the 
children of these poor creatures to other men. Ah! do consider well this 
thing, you who do it, if you would be done in this manner ? and if it is 
done according to Christianity ? You surpass Holland and Germany in this 
thing. This makes an ill report in all those countries of Europe, where they 
hear of it, that the Quakers do here handle men as they handle there the 
cattle. And for that reason some have no mind or inclination to come hither. 
And who shall maintain this your cause, or plead for it ? Truly we cannot 
do so, except you shall inform us better hereof, viz. that Christians have 
liberty to practise these things. Pray, what thing in the world can be done 
worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for 
slaves to strange countries ; separating husbands from their wives and 
children. 


536 


PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY 


537 

Now this is not done in the manner we would be done by, therefore 
we contradict and are against this traffic in the bodies of men. And such 
men ought to be delivered out of the hands of the robbers and set free, as 
in Europe. Then would Pennsylvania have a good report; instead it hath 
now a bad one for this sake in other countries. Especially as the Europeans 
are desirous to know in what manner the Quakers do rule in their province; 
and most of them do look upon us with an envious eye. But if this is done 
well, what shall we say is done evil ? 

If once these slaves (which they say are so wicked and stubborn) should 
join themselves, fight for their freedom, and handle their masters and 
mistresses as they did handle them before; will these masters and mistresses 
take the sword and war against these poor slaves, like, we are able to believe, 
some will not refuse to do ? Or have these negroes not as much right to 
fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves ? 

Now consider well this thing, if it is good or bad ? And in case you 
find it to be good to handle these blacks in that manner, we desire and 
require you hereby lovingly, that you may inform us herein, which at this 
time never was done, viz. that Christians have such a liberty to do so. To 
the end we may be satisfied on this point, and satisfy likewise our good friends 
and acquaintances in our native country, to whom it is a terror, or fearful 
thing, that men should be handled so in Pennsylvania. This is from our 
Meeting at Germantown, held the 18th of the second month, 1688, to be 
delivered to the Monthly Meeting at Richard Worrell’s. 

Garrett Henderick. 

Derick Up De graeff. 

Francis Daniel Pastorius. 

Abraham jr. Den graef. 

Note. —Both Monthly and Quarterly Meetings passed the memorial on 
to the Yearly Meeting, as a matter of “ too great weight ” for their decision. 
The Yearly Meeting temporized. “ It was adjudged not to be so proper for 
this Meeting to give a positive judgment in the case, it having so general a 
relation to so many other parts, and therefore at present they forbear it.” 

Thanks, however, to continued pressure, mainly from one Monthly 
Meeting (Chester) the subject was kept before the Yearly Meeting until 
in 1730 it pronounced definitely against the slave-trade. 


APPENDIX F 


STATISTICS OF ENLISTMENT, 1917 

There are no complete figures showing the position taken during the war 
by Friends of military age, either in England or the United States. In 
November 1922 an English committee, appointed in 1917 to collect such 
figures, reported to the London Meeting for Sufferings. 1 Application had 
been made to sixty-seven Monthly Meetings; of these seven did not reply 
and the information received did not go beyond the year 1917. Returns 
relating to one thousand six hundred and sixty-six Friends and recognized 
Attenders at Friends’ Meetings were sent in. 

4° *2 % or 670 applied for and were granted exemption as C.O’s. 
r 7 * 3 % or 2 8B applied for and were granted exemption on other grounds. 
3 * 4 % or 57 were exempted as not ordinarily resident in Great Britain. 
5-o% or 83 applied for and were refused exemption as C.O’s. 

°*3 % or 5 we r e exempted as ministers of religion. 
o-2% or 3 refused to recognize the tribunals. 

33 * 6 % or 560 enlisted in His Majesty’s Forces. 

These figures are admittedly defective. There were no means of checking 
the Monthly Meeting returns, no knowledge of the total number of Friends 
of military age, nor of the proportion of “ active ” Friends included among 
those who enlisted. The return did not give statistics of the Friends 
imprisoned either because they were not exempted, or because they 
received an exemption from combatant service only. In the Friend 
January 9, 1920, the number is given as two hundred and seventy-nine, of 
whom one hundred and thirty-four accepted the Home Office scheme and 
one hundred and forty-five took the absolutist position. 

1 Vide Friend\ November 10, 1922. 


538 


INDEX 


Abell, Richard, 527 
Abercromby, Lord, 385 
Aberdeen, 137, 146 
Aberdeen, Lord, 264 
“ Absolutists,” 508, 514, 520, 538 
Acadians, 401 
Act of Settlement, 101 
Adams, John, 400 
Ady, John, 208 

Admiralty Commissioners, 51, 530 

Adrianople, 452 

Adult Schools, 254 

Affirmation Bill, 108 

Afghan War, 297-9 

Agriculture, Relief to, 267-8, 498, 500 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 191-2 

Alabama Case, 289, 292, 295 

Albemarle, Duke of, 94 

Albigenses, 24 

Albright, Arthur, 267 n. 

Alexander I, Czar, 256, 459-62, 534 
Alexandria, Bombardment of, 299 
Algiers, Friends captive in, 78-80, 454 
Algonquin Indians, 385 
Alien enemies, relief to, 494-7 ; in 
Germany, 496-7 
Alkmaar, 454 
Allen, Douglas, 491 
Allen, Ellen, 270 
Allen, Henry J., 267 268 

Allen, William, 32-3, 210, 215, 243, 
251, 260, 460-3, 472, 523 
All Friends’Conference, Reports, 416 
425 n. y 427 499 »•> 5 I 7~ I 9 > 

meeting of, 521-2, 524-5 
Alsace-Lorraine, 294 
Alternative service in war, 431-3, 
434-7, 47 <>> 487-8, 49 °> 49 2 > 
507-11, 513? 517- 20 
Ambulance Unit, Friends, 494, 5 OI “ 3 > 
509-11 


American Colonies, 327-415 
Ames, William, 454, 527 
Amiens, Peace of, 211, 215 
Amsterdam, 139, 454 
Anabaptists, 28-31, 40, 60,120 132, 

i 43 , 3 IJ » 472 
Anderdon, John, 92 
Andersonville, 438 
Andrews, Richard, 311 
Andros, Sir Edward, 335 
Anne, Queen, 166, 177, 329, 337, 340, 
344 

Antigua, 307, 318-19, 322-6 
Arbiter in Council , 59, 159 
Arbitration, 158, 168, 244, 246, 254, 
256, 260, 264, 277, 332, 448, 
493 

Arbitration, Hague Court of, 271 
Archdale, John, 350-1 
Armaments, Limitation of, 168, 271, 
287-8 

Armed Associations, 108, 214 
Armenians, 272, 477 
Arms, Friends in Ireland destroy, 217 ; 
warnings against sale or use of, 
208, 214, 233-40, 394-5 
Army, Commonwealth, Friends in, 
45-50, 120-1, 527-31 ; addresses 
by Friends to, 113, 117, 120-3 
Army contracts, 208, 214, 233, 259, 
504, 519 

Arnold, Benedict, 409 
Ash, Dr. Edward, 263 n. 

Askew, John, 324 
Assisi, Francis of, 26, 524 
Athanasius, 20 
Athlone, 107 

Atkins, Sir Jonathan, 311 
Atkinson, John, 72 
Augustine, 20, 320 
Austin, Ann, 307, 327 


539 



INDEX 


540 

Austin, Charles, 430 
Australasia, Friends and compulsory 
service in, 487-92 j Friends during 
the War, 515-17 

Australia, 488, 490-2, 515, 521 ; 

Australian General Meeting, 488, 
490, 491, 492, 515 
Australian Freedom League, 489 
Austria, 452, 496, 497, 501, 521 
Austrian Succession, War of, 170 
Ayrey, Thomas, 55 

Backhouse and Tyler, Early Church 
History, 20 n. 

Bacon, Christopher, 56, 527 
Baden, Grand Duchess Luise of, 
477-8, 493 

Baker, Daniel, 52, 527 
Baker, Philip, 503 
Balance of Power, 291, 293, 297 
Balby, Epistle from Meeting at, 48,52 
Balfour, Lord, 483 
Balkan Wars, 271, 487 
Ballitore, 218, 223, 224 
Ballitore, Annals of, “ 223 n. 

Ballot, Militia, 197, 205-6, 213, 245, 
246, 265 
Ballyhagan, 102 
Balm in Gilead, 128 
Baltimore, 447 

Baltimore Meeting for Sufferings, 430, 
434, 436, 447 

Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 328 n., 446 
Bancroft, Major William, 527 
Banner of Love, The, 129, 146 
Bannian, Lieutenant-General, 456 
Baptist, John the, 58, 141 
Baptists, 28-30, 39 n., 45, 94, 342, 441, 
454 

Barbadoes, 103, 179, 307-14, 321, 
322, 357 n. 

Barber, Captain William, 527 
Barclay, Alexander, 135 n. 

Barclay, David (father of Robert), 

I 34”5> 138 

Barclay, David (son and grandson of 
Robert), 192, 201, 205-6, 379 
Barclay, Eliza, 267 n. 

Barclay, Robert, life of, 134-7 > 329* 
454 ; imprisonments, 136, 137, 146 
Apology, 30 n., 135, 137-8, 147, 151, 
152, 191-3, 456, 458, 463-4, 468, 
476, 522, 523, 524 


Epistle to Ambassadors, 147-51, 158 
R.B. y s Apology . . . Vindicated, 145 
Theses Theologies, 139, 144 
Universal Love, 137, 146-7 
Barclay, R., Inner Life, etc., 23 n., 
29 n., 30 n., 32 n., 453 n. 

Bardfield, 215 
Barker, Cyrus, 442 
Barker, Nathan, 442 
Barnard, Hannah, 251 n. 

Barnardiston, Giles, 527 
Barnes, John, 104 
Barritt, Cornelius, 512 n. 

Barton, Colonel, 46 
Barrow, Harrison, 515 
Barwick, Cornet Robert, 527 
Bates, Benjamin, 417 
Bates, Elisha, 533 
Battin, Dr. Benjamin, 478 
Bayley, William, 132, 522 
Bayonets, piercing with, 443, 445 
Beaconite controversy, 533 
Beal, Thomas, 527 
Beatus Rhenanus, 15 n. 

Beck, Ernest, 267 n., 269 
Beck, William, 2 67 n. 

Bedford, Duke of, 313 
Belgium, neutrality of, 293-4 
Bellers, John, 165, 523, 524 
Some Reasons for a European State, 
167-9 

Bellows, John, 158 n., 267 n., 271 
Benezet, Anthony, 377, 381 n., 384, 
401-2, 468, 523, 524 
Benezet, Jean, 470 
Benson, Colonel, 527 
Bennet, Justice, 44 
Bennet, Secretary, 71 
Berliner Tageblatt, 497 
Bermuda, 307, 322 
Bernstein, E., History of Socialism, 166 
Besse, Joseph, 122, 153, 165, 170-1 
Sufferings of the Quakers, 50, 55 
74, 77, 78 n., 80 n., 308 

310-11, 313 n., 31531 6n., 
3i8 n., 319 n., 357 n., 453 n., 

527-9 

Bethune-Baker, Rev. J., Influence of 
Christianity on War, 19 n. 

Bewley, John, 219 
Bicknell, K.C., 205, 214 
Bible Society, British and Foreign, 
211, 261 



INDEX 


54i 


Bible Society, Russian, 460 
Biddle, Clement, 412 
Biddle, Hester, 453 n. 

Biddle, Owen, 402 
Biglow Papers , 422 n. 

Billeting of Soldiers, 77, 188, 347, 456 
Billing, Edward, 527 
Birkbeck, Morris, 236-8 
Birmingham, 226, 233, 245, 254, 263, 
277, 282, 285-6, 290, 291, 297-8, 
303, 482, 502 

Birmingham, Bull Street Meeting¬ 
house, 233, 240 

Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, 
263 

Birmingham Monthly Meeting, 233-40 

Birthright Members, 182, 390, 402, 505 

Bishop, Captain George, 527 

Bismarck, 255 

Black Friday, 191 

Black Sea, 295 

Blackwell, Governor, 357 

Blockade, 291, 497 

Bodenstedt, Dr., 256 

Bodkin, Mr., 508 n. 

Bogomili, 23 
Bohemian Brethren, 27-8 
Bombardment, relief work under, 498 
Bonifield, Abram, 77 
Booth, Francis, 531 
Booth, Sir George, 60 
Boston, 327, 333, 335, 34 1 * 343 > 39 2 > 
395 »• 

Boswell, Life of Johnson, 182, 189 n. 
Boulogne, 512 
Bownas, Samuel, 348 
Bowron, John, 307 
Boyne, Battle of, 101, 103, 106 
Braddock, General, 374 
Braford, Edward, 527 
Bradford, Captain, 47, 527, 531 
Brailsford, Miss, 120 n. 

Braithwaite, J. B., 158 n. 

Braithwaite, W. C., Beginnings of 
Quakerism, 40 n., 46 n., 48 527, 

5 2 9 

Second Period of Quakerism , 56 
66 n., 69 n., 70 n ., 72 n., 75 n., 
1 65 n ., 351 n. 

Brayshaw, A. Neave, 19 6 n. 

Brazil, History of (Southey), 249 
Breda, Declaration of, 64 
Breda, Peace of, 319 


Brennan, John, 324-5 
Briggs, Thomas, 315 
Bright, J. A., 294 

Bright, John, 248, 251, 253, 256, 259, 
263, 266, 273-303, 423, 428 
Exceptions to peace views, 277, 285, 
289-91 

Letters quoted, 276, 283-4, 286, 
287-9, 290-1, 294-5, 299-300, 

303 

Speeches quoted, 275-8, 280-4, 

286-90, 292-4, 296-303 
Bringhouse, John, 374 
Bristol, Friends and Militia at, 55 
Riots at, 203 

Bristol Half-yearly Meeting, 234 
Bristol and Somerset Quarterly Meeting, 
99, 187, 197, 228 
Brooke, Sir James, 263 
Brown, James, 56, 527 
Brown, John, 422 
Brown, Mary Willis, 203 n. 

Brown, Moses, 388, 392 
Browne, Sir William, 455 
Brownists, 60 
Brussels, 268 

Bucking down, 442-3, 512 n. 

Buckley, Colonel, 319 
Buckner, Jesse, 441 
Bulgaria, 23, 271, 487 
Bunhill Fields, 184 
Bunker’s Hill, 403, 426 «. 

Bunsen, Amelia de, 267 n. 

Bunsen, Chevalier, 256 
Burgess, Ann, 487 
Burke, Edmund, 219 
Burlington, 328 n., 344, 347 
Burnycat, John, 104 
Burritt, Elihu, 254, 256 
Burrough, Edward, 118-20, 327 
Bush, John, 207 
BushelVs Case, 154 n. 

Butler, John, 324 
Buzuluk, 500, 518 
Byfield, Colonel, 340-1 

Cadbury, M. Christabel, Robert Bar¬ 
clay, 134 n. 

Cadoux, Dr. C. J., Early Christian 
Attitude to War , 16 n. 

Calendar of State Papers (America and 
West Indies), 310 311 ».,3i2«., 

313 315 «•» (Colonial), 89^ 



542 


INDEX 


333 n.y 334 335 »• 5 (Domes¬ 
tic), 51 55 60 83 

5 2 7~9> 530 

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 482 
Cambridge Modem History , 151 
Cambridge Journal (Fox), 8, 42-4, 
46-50, 56-64, 66, 68, 70, 530, 
532-3 

Camels, Army, 299 
Camisards, 468 

Canada, 271, 339, 342-4, 349, 361, 
363, 369* 381, 521 
Canonicut, 342 
Canterbury, 178 

Canterbury, Archbishop of, 494 
Cape Colony, 485 
Capital Punishment, 354 n. 

Capper, Samuel J., 266, 267 n. 

Cardiff, Friends and Militia at, 56 
Carib Indians, 309, 315, 318 
Carlisle, 190 
Carlisle, Abraham, 409 
Carlisle, Earl of, 181 
Carlow, Massacre of, 223 
Carlyle, T., Sartor Resartus, 172 
Carolina, North and South, 345, 

35 0- 2 > 353 > 393 > 39 6 ~ 7 > 4 i 7 > 
438-41, 446 

Carolina, North, Yearly Meeting, 
328 396, 417 489 

Carpenter, Samuel, 357 
Carrick-on-Suir, 253 n. 

Carson, Sir Edward, 483 
Carver, Richard, 64 
Cary, John, 351, 527 
Cases, Book of, 185 192 204 

205-7, 215 260 n. y 264 n.y 

455 *•» 45 6 »• 

Catawissa, 410 
Cathari, 24 

Catherine II, of Russia, 32, 33, 461 
Caton, William, 50, 61, 454 
Catholicism, Roman, 177, 190, 193 
Caudle, Lewis, 444 
Cavalry Act, 212 
Cavalry fines, 215 
Cavour, Count, 260 n. 

Celsus, 19, 145 
Censorship, 514-15 
Cevennes, 469 

Chalkley, Thomas, 178-9, 321-2, 

337 - 9 > 418-19, 523 
Ch&lons Maternity Hospital, 498 


Chamberlain, Joseph, 299 
Channel Islands, 488 
Channing, W. E., 418 
Chaplains, Quaker, 514 
Chapman, Abel, 230 
Charles I, 42 

Charles II, 63-5, 68, 88,136,139, 309, 
3 2 7 > 353 

Charles Edward, Prince, 188 
Charles the Great, Capitulary of, 21 
Charleton, Robert, 257-8, 260 263 n. 

Chartists, 245 279 

Chatham, Lord, 194, 374 n. 
Chelmsford, 207, 475 
Chester, 205 

Chester Monthly Meeting (Pennsyl- 
. vania), 537 
China, 477, 521 
Chinese Wars, 254, 263-4, 284 
Christ, His teaching on Peace, 29-30, 
60, 123, 140, 151, 157, 172, 178, 
181, 192, 231, 257, 278, 310, 316, 
342, 419, 421, 427, 463, 467, 
.477, 484, 494, 522, 524-5, 534 
Christadelphians, 35 
Christianity, War incompatible with, 
44, 124, 138, 140 foil., 255, 264, 
267, 272, 277, 288, 342, 429, 434, 
441, 450, 481, 484, 52a 
Christy, Thomas, 473-4 
Churchill, Lord, 94 
Civil War, American, 265, 288-91, 
422-448, 489 ; losses of, 448 
Civil War, English, 39-40, 42, 138-9 
Clarendon, Lord, 260 
Clark, C. & J., 259 
Clark, Dr. Hilda, 498 
Clark, Mrs. W. S., 294 
Clarke, Walter, 334 
Clarkson, Thomas, 204-5, 2 44> 360, 
401 

Clause, John, 455 
Clemesha, Samuel, 230-1 
Clergy and War, 20-21, 25, 42, 149, 
164, 282, 301 
Clibborn, John, 527 
Clifton, 190 
Clifton Union , 243 
Clive, Lord, 194 
Clonmel, 186 253 n. 

Cobden, Richard, 208, 244«., 252, 
260, 273, 279-80, 282, 284, 287-9, 
291 292, 301-2 



INDEX 


Political Writings , 252 
Speeches, 208 246, 255 256 

Coddington, Governor, 333 
Codognan, Paul, 468 
Coffin, William H., 422 
Colet, Dean, 28 n. 

Collegiants, 30 n., 453 
Coin St. Aldwyn, 165 
Colonial Entry Booh , 310 n., 311 
312 313 315 n 318 n. 

Colonial Records , 363 370 380 

Colvill, John, 76 

Commercial treaty, Cobden’s, 287 
Commutation money (for conscripts), 
425 429 - 3 U 434 ~ 7 > 439 - 40 , 
441 442 

Compulsory Service v. Conscription 
Comstock, Elizabeth, 429 
Concentration Camps, 485 
Conestoga, 385 

Confederate States, sufferings of Friends 
in, 423, 437-47 
Conford, 97 
Cong6nies, 468-70 
Connecticut, 393 

Conscience, liberty of, 66, 92, 144, 
260 n. y 328, 454, 467, 471, 473, 

476, 514-15 

Conscience , Nature and Authority of, 
521 

Conscience , Record of a Quaker , 
430 n. 

Conscientious Objectors, 214, 331, 347, 
430 foil., 440-46, 470, 471-5, 
47 6, 488-92, 5 0 7 ~ i 4 , 5 i6 “ 20 > 

522, 538 

cruelties to, 432, 442-6, 473-4, 

511- 12, 520 
deaths of, 443-6 

sentenced to be shot, 433, 443~4, 

5 12 - *3 

Conscription under Roman Empire, 
17-18 

Continental peace sects and, 31-5 
in England, 35, 499, 507-14 
in American Colonies, 339-40, 347, 
349 

in United States, 425 4 * 9 - 37 , 
517-20 

in Confederate States, 437-46 
in Europe, 469-77 
in New Zealand, 516 
Conservative Friends, 517 *• 


543 

Conspiracy, Friends’ testimony against, 
115 foil. 

Constables, Friends as, 76 n., 245 n. 
Constance, 493 
Constantine, 16, 20 
Constantinople, 277, 477, 487 
Continental Congress, 385 n., 388, 399, 
400, 402-3, 405-7 
Cook, Captain, 227, 230 
Cook, Cornet Edward, 527 
Copenhagen, 261 n. 

Coppoc, Barclay, 422 
Coppoc, Edwin, 422 
Corbett, William, 64, 527 
Corder, Percy, 267 n., 271 n. 

Cork, 102, 104, 153, 186 
Corn, high price of, and Quakers, 210, 
260 

Corn Laws, Repeal of, 273-4, 278, 303 
Cornbury, Lord, 363 
Cornwell, Thomas, 340 
Coup d’dtat, 256 
Courts-martial, 512-13 
Cowper, The Task , 194, 197 n. 
Cranston, John, 334 
Crefeld, 454 
Crenshaw, J. B., 446 
Crimean War, 244, 259-60, 264, 273, 
275, 282-4, *89, 302 
Crisp, Steven, 90, 454, 527 
Croese, Gerald, History of the Quakers , 
453 «•» 464 
Cromwell, Henry, 49 
Cromwell, Oliver, 47, 49, 57, 532, 
533 ; on “ Seekers,” 40 ; inter¬ 
view with Fox, 58 $ death, 59, 62 
Crook, John, 527 
Crosfield, Joseph, 244 253, 267 

269 

Crosland, Sidney, 491 
Cruc6, Emericde, Nouveau Cynie, 159 n. 
Crusade of 1208, 24-6 
Culloden, 171 
Culpepper Rebellion, 350 
Cumberland, William, Duke of, 170, 
190-1 

Cumberland, 189 
Cumming, Thomas, 182-4 
Curraghmore, 253 n. 

Currency, Depreciation of, in War of 
Independence, 396, 404-5,411-12; 
in Confederate States, 439 n. ; in 
Central Europe, 501 



INDEX 


544 

Curtis, Ann, 63 
Curtis, Thomas, 527 
Cyprus, 271 n. 

Daily News, 245 
Daily News Fund, 266, 268 
Dakin, Peter, 430 
Dale, Dr., 302 
Dalencourt, Justine, 270 
Daniel, Colonel, 49 
Dante, 158, 303 
Danzig, 454-5 
Darlington, History of, 189 
Darlow, John, 324 
Darragh, Lydia, 412 
Dartmouth, Lord, 201 
Dash wood, Peter, 315 
Davenport, Captain-Lieutenant, 49, 528 
Davies, Quartermaster Daniel 528 
Davis, Jefferson, 438, 445 
Declaration of 1660-1, 68, 114 foil., 
247 n. 

Defence Acts, Australia and New 
Zealand, 487-92, 517 
Defence of the Realm Act, 514 
Defensive war, Barclay on, 142—3 ; 
Penington on, 126, 128 ; sup¬ 
ported, 170-2, 209, 237-8, 361, 
39 8 

Delaware, 154, 329, 356, 360, 362-3, 
369* 376 

Delaware Indians, 369, 375, 379, 384-5 
Dell, Jonas, 528 

Denmark, 255, 291 ; Friends in, 

475 “ 7 > 52 1 
Deptford, 458 
Derby, 43-6 
Derby, Lord, 297, 301 
Derbyshire, 200 
Deserters, Branding of, 445 
Devonshire, Duke of, 186 n. 
Devonshire House Meeting - house, 
188 n., 504, 521 

Devonshire House Monthly Meeting, 
203 

Dewsbury, William, 42, 45-8, 528, 530 
Dickinson, John, 388, 399, 403 n. 
Dillwyn, George, 390, 471 n. 

Dillwyn, Sarah, 471 n. 

Dimsdale, Thomas, 461 
Diocletian, 18 

Discipline, Booh of Christian, 247, 
49 ° n.> 524 


Disownment, 209, 214, 217-18, 224- 

40, 345 > 35 2 > 3 8 9 ~ 9 °> 393 > 4 °°> 
402-3, 410-13, 425, 505 
Disraeli, 285, 288, 296 
Divine Protection through Extraordinary 
Dangers (D. Goff), 216 n. 

Dixon, John, 67 

Doe, Mary, 338 

Doe, Henry, 339 

Douglas, John M., 218 

Doukhobors, 33-4, 271, 461-2 

Dove, Lieutenant, 530 

Draft, v. Conscription 

Drinker, Elizabeth, 408 

Drinker, Henry, 406 

Drury, Captain, 533 

Dublin, Friends in, 108, 253 

Dublin Half-yearly Meeting, 103, 104 

Dublin, Yearly Meeting, 217, 224 

Dudley, Colonel, 342 

Dundalk, 108 

Dundas, Admiral, 261 n. 

Dunkards, 30, 439, 517 
Dunkirk, 118, 466-7, 502 
Dunn, Colonel Francis, 105, 107 
Dunn, Captain William, 106 
Dunning, John, 205 
Dunning, John, 267 n. 

Dutch Colonies in America, 327, 330 
Dymond, C. W., 250 n. 

Dymond, Jonathan, 248-51, 523 
Essay on War , 248, 277 
Dyne, William, 267 n. 

Easton, 390 

Easton, John, 332, 334-5 
Easton, Nicholas, 330, 332 
Edinburgh, 134, 276, 281, 292, 530 
Edington, 98 

Edmundson, William (Journal), in 
Irish Wars, 105-7 $ in West 
Indies, 315; in America, 329, 
334 > 35 6 *M 528 
Education, Friends and, 211 
Egyptian War, 300 
Eidinghausen, 473 
Elcock, Charles, 267 n. 

Elizabeth of the Rhine, Princess, 136, 
454 

Ellis, Edith M., 515 
Ellis, J. E., 484 
Ellis, James, 79 
Ellis, Harold, 485 



INDEX 


545 


Ellwood, Thomas, 146, 185, 533 
Emden, 454 

Emergency Committee, Friends’, 494-7, 
498 n., 500-1 
Emlen, Samuel, 402 
Enlistment of Friends, 60, 105, 225 n., 
486, 504-5, 507, 515, 519, 538 
Enniscorthy, 221 
Erasmus on War, 28 
Essenes, 22 

Europe, Friends in, 452-78, 501 
Eusebius, Church History, 17 
Evans, Governor John, 361-3 
Extracts from State Papers, 51 n., 52 n., 
58 n., 60 n., 66-8, 71-2 

Falkener, Edward, 463 
Fallowfield, John, 324 
“ Family of Love,” 30 n. 

Famine, Irish, 252-3 
Farm-burning, Policy of, 484-5 
Farmer, Joseph, 233 
Fasts Public, and Quakers, 97, 142, 196 
Fear God and Honour the King (Fox), 
122-3 

Fell, Margaret (later Fox), 47, 63-5, 
68, 307 

Fell, Sarah, 73 
Ferns, 217 

Fettiplace, Frances, 165 
Field Punishment, 512 
Fifth Monarchy Men, 45, 57, 65 
Fighting Sailor turned Peaceable Chris¬ 
tian, The, 52 foil. 

Finch, Richard, tract on self-defence, 
170 ; returns to peace views, 172-3 
Finland, 255, 261-2 
Fire of London, Quakers suspected, 72 
First Publishers of Truth, 55 n., 527-9 
Fisher, Mary, 307, 327, 452 
Fisher, Samuel, 406 
Fiske, John, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, 
375 

Five Years’ Meeting, 451, 517-1 8 
Fletcher, Colonel, 357-8? 36° 

Fletcher, Widow, 186 
Flinn, Christopher, 491 
Florence, 284 
Flushing, 343, 500 

Forgotten Burying Grounds of the Society 
of Friends (Moberly Phillips), 91 
Forrest, 221 
Forster, William, 253 


Forster, W. E., 253 
Foster, Captain, 51 
Foster, Lieutenant Matthew, 528, 530-1 
Fothergill, Dr. John, 201, 371, 379, 
389; 403 

Fothergill, Samuel, 372 n., 375, 377, 
379 > 38 i 

Fox, Charles James, 204, 208 
Fox, Edward Long, 469 
Fox, George, 26, 35, 60, 61, 63, 64, 
66, 68, 115, 116, 120, 122, 464, 
486 ; religious experiences, 39-42 ; 
refuses commission, 43-4 ; on 
militia, 55-6, 114 ; and Protecto¬ 
rate, 56-9, 122 ; on payment of 
war taxes, 73 ; addresses to Army, 
113 ; on peaceable nature of 
Christianity, 114, 119, 532-3 j 

travels in Europe, 147 ; in West 
Indies, 308 ; in America, 329 ; 
letter to Nevis Friends, 316-17 
Fox, George, Epistles, 48, 60, 73, 113- 
14, 306, 308, 316 

Journal, 40 foil., 56 foil., 66, 70 foil., 
115, 146, 455, 531, 532-3 s 
F ox, George, “the Younger,” 117, 
118, 122, 528 
Fox, Dr. Joseph, 469 
France, Friends in, 202, 462-70, 519-21 
France, Wars with, 78, 138, 148, 208, 
243 > 279, 3 I 3 > 318, 322, 335, 339, 
349 > 357 > 37 i> 374 
Franchise Reform, 253-4, 278 
Franco-German War, 265-71, 292, 

2 93 y 5 

Francs-tireurs, 270 
Frankfort, 256, 258 
Franklin, Benjamin, 28, 201, 371-2, 
374 n., 376 n., 386, 413 
Frazier, Solomon, 441-2 
Frederick the Great, 32, 402 
Frederick William III of Prussia, 
459-60, 471-5 

Free Quakers, 238, 387, 411-13, 523 
Free Trade, 253-4, 279, 287 
Freedmen, Negro, 427, 429, 434-6 
French, Thomas, 206 
Friedrichstadt, 454, 456-9 
Friend, The, 245 n., 263 n., 266, 267 n., 
269 n., 274, 470 n., 471 n ., 474 n., 
482, 488 n., 491 n., 492 n., 493 n., 
496 504 n., 509, 510, 512 n., 

515 538 »• 


35 



INDEX 


54.6 

FriendThe (Philadelphia), 375 n., 
426 n., 430 n., 436 n. 

Friend , The Australian, 488 n., 489 n. 
Friend, The British, 245 n., 246 n., 259, 
391 n., 402 482, 488 n. 

Friendly Association (Indian), 384-7, 
401 

Friends and the Indians (Kelsey), 333, 

343 > 375 *•» 4 i 7 449 

Friends’ Foreign Mission Association, 

477 

Friends’ Historical Society Journal, 
200 n., 468 n. 

Friends in America (Bowden), 358 n., 
366 n., 403 n. 

Friends’ Intelligencer, The, 420 n., 
424425 *•» 42 6 *•» 43 6w -> 

437 478 n. 

Friends’ Miscellany, The, 417 n. 
Friends’ Quarterly Examiner, 26 
101 w„ 267 437 n. 

Friends’ Review, The, 426 n., 436 
Friends’ Service Committee (American), 
499, 517-20 ; (English), 507, 515 
Friends’ Service in War-time, 503 n. 
Friends, Society of, peace principles 
of, 115, 132-3, 140, 199, 211—12, 
216, 276, 370, 397, 429, 486, 493, 
504-6, 513, 517, 521-5 ; origin, 
40 ; under Protectorate, 57 ; 
under Charles II, 66 foil. ; obedi¬ 
ence to government, 116-7 ; de¬ 
cline in eighteenth century, 177 ; 
revival of 254 ; other references, 
passim 

Frowd, Sir Philip, 72 
Fry, Edmund, 244 
Fry, Sir Edward, 253 n. 

Fry, Elizabeth, 211 
Fry, J. Augusta, 267 n. 

Fry, Joseph, 204 
Fuce, Joseph, 51 528 

Furly, Benjamin, 354 

Galton, Francis, 233 
Gal ton, Samuel, junior, 233-40 
Galton, Samuel, senior, 233-5 
Gardiner, S. R., Commonwealth and 
Protectorate, 55 n. 

Gawler, Francis, 56 
Gawler, John, 56 

Gebhart, Emile, Mystics and Heretics 
in Italy, 24 n. 


Geneva, 501 

Gentleman’s Magazine, 182, 189, 197 
200, 376 n., 385 n. 

George I, 185 

George II, 186, 188, 190, 523 
George III, 195, 199, 202, 204 
Georgia, 397, 411 n. 

German Prisoners work for Friends' 
Relief, 499 

Germantown, 356, 386, 536-7 
Germany, 492, 493, 501, 521 ; Friends 
in, 136, 147-8, 154, 453-4, 458, 
460, 464, .470-5, 501, 521 ; 

Yearly Meeting in, 454 
Gettysburg, 420, 444 
Gibbon, Matthew, 56 
Gibbons, James Sloan, 424 
Gibbons, Joseph, 233 
Gibson, George, 207, 215 
Gibson, Milner, 261 n. 

Gibson, William, 47 n., 528 
Gilbert, Benjamin, 410 
Gill, Egerton, 516 
Gilpin, Thomas, 406, 408, 528 
Girdler, George, 76 
Girondins, 414, 467 
Gladstone, W. E., 260, 273, 282, 288, 
291, 294, 296-7, 300, 301 
Gnostics, 21-3 
Goff, Dinah, 216 n., 220-2 
Goff, Elizabeth, 220, 222 
Goff, Jacob, 220-2, 224 
Gookin, Governor, 363-5 
Goree, 182-3 

Gortschakoff, Prince, 260 n. 

Gott, Sarah, 231 
Gower, Sir Thomas, 71 
Gracechurch Street, 154 n., 458 
Graeff, Abraham and Derickden, 537 
Grafton, Duke of, 104 
Graham, John, 528 
Graham, Principal J. W., 35 n. y 

153 n -> 5 2 ° n - 

Graham, Sir James, 261, 282 
Grand dessein, 158-9, 162, 169 
Grant, President, 448-9 
Granville, Lord, 295 
Grassingham, Robert, 74 n. 

Gray, Charles Wing, 267 n . 

Green, J. J., 189, 200 n. 

Green, Joshua Marks, 215 
Green, Nathaniel, 393-4 
Greer, Thomas, 104 



INDEX 


547 


Gregory, Stoke St., 93 
Grellet, Stephen, 32, 459-62, 470, 472, 
5 2 3 

Grey, Lord, 93 
Groningen, 454 

Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pads, 159 n. 
Grubb, Edward, 416 n. 

Grubb, Isabel, 101 105 n. 

Grubb, J. Ernest, 253 n. 

Grubb, Robert, 471 n. 

Grubb, Sarah, 471 n. 

Guadaloupe, 320 

Guildford Court House, Battle of, 
393 

Guildhall, Trial at, 515 
Gummere, A. M., 344 n., 374 n., 392 n. 
Guns on Ships, Friends and, 89-91, 
187, 195, 207-9, 227-32 
Gurney, Eliza, 428-9 
Gurney, John, 208 
Gurney, John Henry, 267 n. 

Gurney, Joseph John, 251, 428 
Gurney, Samuel, 267 n. 

Guy Fawkes’ Day Riots, 18 6n. 

Haarlem, 454 
Habeas Corpus, 205, 407 
Hack, Daniel, 267 n. 

Hagen, Jacob, 456, 458 
Hague Conference, 162, 271 
Hague, William, 324-6 
Haldane, Lord, 486 
Halifax John, 210 
Hall, Joseph, 244 
Hall, Rufus, 391 n. 

Hallatrow, 92 
Halleck, H. W., 424-5 n. 

Hamburg, 454 
Hamilton, Colonel, 361 
Hancock, Dr., Prindples of Peace, 
216 219 n. 

Hansard (quoted), 261, 512-13 
Hanson, John, 343 n. 

Hare, Augustus, Story of Two Noble 
Lives, 253 n. 

Harlingen, 454 

Harnack, Professor, 15, 2022 n., 
23 n., 24 n. 

Harper’s Ferry, 422 
Harris, Edward, 444 
Harrison, Bernard, 205 
Harvey, T. Edward, 26 n., 499 n, > 
533 


Harvey, Thomas, 33, 261 
Harwich, 179, 512 
Haslam, Lawrence, 91 
Haughton, Joseph, 216 n., 217-20 
Haverford College, 518 
Hawley, Major, 395 
Hayes, Henry, 74 
Hayes, President, 449 
Hazebrouck, 502 
Heathcote, Dr., 181 
Helling, Joseph, 72 
Henderick, Garrett, 537 
Henry IV (France), 158, 168 
Henry, Patrick, 402 
Herald of Peace, 208 243 n., 

275 n. 

Herrnh liter, 28 
Hessian troops, 221 
Hibbert, G. K., 486 
“ Hicksite ” Friends, 416, 424-6, 437, 
446, 517-18 
Hicks, Elias, 251 n. 

Higginson, Edward, 463-4 
Highwood, Humphrey, 315 
Hilary, Christopher, 74 
Hildyard, Sir Robert, 67-8 
Hill, Richard, 362 
Hinde, Luke, 190 
Hindenburg, General, 499 
Hingston-Fox, Dr., Dr. John Pother- 
gill and his Friends, 371, 379 
Hinshaw, Amos, 442 
Hinshaw, Thomas, 442 
Hirst, F. W., 159 n. 

Hispaniola, 319 
Hoag, Joseph, 321, 418-21 
Hoare, Samuel, 209 
Hobart Friends’ School, 490 
Hobhouse, Miss, 485 
Hobhouse, Stephen, 494 
Hobman, Samuel, 528 
Hockett, Himelius, 444 ~ 6 
Hockett, Jesse, 444-6 
Hockett, William, 444, 446 
Hodge, Henry, 324-6. 

Hodgkin, A. M., Friends in Ireland, 
216 n. 

Hodgkin, H. T., Friends beyond Seas, 
477 *• 

Hodgkin, L. V., A Book of Quaker 
Saints, 391 n. 

Hogbin, John, 75 
Holden, Blanch, 102 




5+8 


INDEX 


Holland, Federal Government in, 159 $ 
Friends in, 136, 147-8, 154, 453-4, 
457> 4 Th S°o, 501 ; Mennonites 
in, 30-1 ; religious intercourse 
with England, 29-30 ; wars in, 
136, 148 j Yearly Meeting, 454 
“ Hollandische Welvaren,” 203 
Holmes, Captain, 528 
Holstein, Duke of, 456 
Holway, Edward, 430 
Holy Alliance, 460 n. 

Home Office Scheme, 513, 538 
Home Rule, 273, 301, 482 
Hookes, Ellis, 68, 78 n., 88-9 
Hooper, William, 102 
Hoover, Herbert, 521 
Hopkins, Francis, 490 
Hopkins, Stephen, 336, 388 
Horetown, 220 

Hornould, William, 179-80, 325 
Horsemonger Lane, 215 
Howard, Eliot, 267 n. 

Howard, Elizabeth Fox, 503 
Howard, Luke, The Yorkshireman, 80 n., 
203 n., ■2.1m., 213 rc.,4647*. 
Howard, Robert, 210 
Howe, Lord, 392, 405, 407, 408 
Howgill, Francis, 55 n., 72-3 
Hoxie, Zebulon, 391 
Hubberthorn, Richard, 45, 61, 64, 
68, 115-16, 528 
Hughes, Job, 4x0 
Huguenots, 320, 351, 401 
Hungary, 280 
Hunt, John, 349, 406, 408 
Hunter, Jeremiah, 91 
Hurd, Sarah, 93 
Husband, Hermon, 352 
Huss, John, 27 
Hutchinsonians, 328, 330 
Huterites, 29, 452 
Hyde, Lord, 201 

Ilchester, Friends imprisoned at, 91-2, 
95-6 ; cruelties to rebels at, 96 
Illuminations, Friends and, 186 n., 196, 
i99> 203, 409 

Illustrated London News, 266 
Imitation of Christ, The, 320 
Immunity of Friends, in Irish Rebel¬ 
lion, 104, 218, 221, 223 n. ; in 
Indian risings, 336-9, 343, 367-8, 
375? 3 8 4> 39° 


Income Tax, 213 

Independence, Declaration of, 336, 388 
Independence, War of, 109, 200 foil., 

22 5 «•» 3 8 3 > 3 88 - 4 i 5 
Independents, 45 
India, 477 $ wars in, 264 
Indian Mutiny, 263, 285-6 
Indiana, 417 n., 418, 424, 434 
Indiana Meeting for Sufferings, 264 n. 
Indians, North American, 28, 330-4, 
336-9, 343, 35 2 > 361, 365-70, 
374-82, 384, 390-1, 410-11, 

417-19, 448-50 

Indulgence, Declaration of, 100, 154-5, 
3i3 

Ingle, William, 490 
Inner Light, The, 41, 45, 113, 115, 
119, 129, 131-2, 135, 143, 147, 
151, 196, 202, 248, 522, 524 
Innocent III, Pope, 26 
Inquisition, 121, 452 
International Armed Police Force, 
161, 168, 293 

Internment Camps, 495, 515 
Iowa, 422, 434, 476 
Ireland, Friends in, 49, 50, 74, 521 ; 
Irish wars, Friends sufferings in, 
101-8 ; in the Rebellion, 216-24 ; 
famine relief in, 252 
Irish Rebellion (1848), 253 n. 

Iroquois, 369, 375, 385 
Italy, Early sects in, 24 

Jackson, Ellen, 267 n. 

Jacobites, 108, 170, 185, 188-91, 523 
Jamaica, 307, 314-16, 319, 321-2, 521 
James II, 69, 77, 88, 96, 100-1, 106, 
136-7, 154, 312, 335, 353 
Janney, Life of Penn, 100, 153, 156, 367 
Jansen, Cornelius, 257 
Japan, 521 

Jaulmes, Les Quakers Frangais , 470 
Jay, Judge, 254, 260 
Jeffreys, Judge, 91, 96, 313 
Jenkin, Howard, 380 
Jerrold, Douglas, 245 
Jesuits, 320 

Jewish Dispensation ended by Chris¬ 
tianity, 114, 116, 123, 141 
John, George D., 424 n. 

Johnson, Doctor, 182 
Jones, Augustine, 448 
Jones, Quartermaster Daniel, 528 




INDEX 


549 


Jones, Eli, 421, 425 
Jones, James Parnell, 425 
Jones, Paul, 202 

Jones, Dr. Rufus, Later Periods of 

Quakerism, 21 6 n., 416 n. y 417 «.j 
418 n., 422 424 425 431, 

433 446 

Quakers in the American Colonies, 
307 n.y 308 n„ 328 331 n.y 

332 »•, 333 335 «•» 33 6 «-> 

344 35 1 «•> 388 392-9 «• 

^ Service of Love in War-time, 
517 519-20 

Spiritual Reformers of the Seven¬ 
teenth Century, 23 35 453 w. 

Studies in Mystical Religion, 23 
27 29 30 «. 

Svoarthmore Lecture, 521 
Jones, William, 267 «., 268, 270-1 
Julian the Apostate, 20 
Julian, Senator, 424 
Justin, Martyr, 15 $ F/r/f Apology, 
16 $ Trypho, 16 

Kansas, 422, 450 
Keith, George, 453 «. 

Kenderdine, Thaddeus, 424 n., 425 «. 
Kent Quarterly Meeting, 75-6, 185, 
196 

Kenyon, Lloyd, 206-7 
Keppel, Admiral, 183 
Killo, Ananias, 528 
Kilmarnock, Earl of, 171 
King Philip’s War, 331-4 
Kinglake, H., Invasion of the Crimea, 
257 n., 258-9 
Kingston, Duke of, 190 
Kirke, Colonel, 91 
Knowlman, Richard, 52, 528 
Knoxville, 418 
Kossuth, 279 
Kruger, President, 481 

Labadists, 453 
Lactantius, 17, 19-20 
Lake Mohonk Conference, 448 
Lambert, General, 46, 60-1 
Lancashire, 189 

Lancaster, Fox imprisoned at, $6, 62, 
70, 116 

Lancaster, Joseph, 211 
Lancaster (Pennsylvania), 405, 410 
Langdall, Jonas, 528, 531 


Langford, Jonas, 323-4 
Lansmeer, 454 
Lanson, M. Gustave, 462 
Latey, Gilbert, 77, 109 
Latten, Punishment of the, 474 
Laurens, Le Sieur de, 320 
Lawrence, Captain John, 528 
Le Sage on Friends, 462 
Leadbetter, Mary, Experiences in Irish 
Rebellion, 222-4 
Leadbetter, William, 219 
League of Nations, Proposals for, 158 
Penn on, 161 foil. ; Bellers on, 
166 foil. 

Lee, General Robert, 442 

Leeds, 296 

Leeuwarden, 454 

Leeward Islands, 315 

Leinster, 103, 217 

Lesson, The Noble, 25 

Letters of Early Friends, 48 n., 61 n. 

Levellers, 49, 57 

Levenes, John, 528 

Lexington, 403, 426 

Liberty Song, 399 n. 

Lichnowsky, Prince, 497 
Lilburne, John, becomes a Friend, 59 
Lilburne, Colonel Robert, 528, 530 
Limerick, 104, 18 6 n. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 289-90, 427-30, 
433 > 437 

Linskill, Joseph, 227 

Liverpool, Quaker shipmaster at, 89 

Lloyd George, Mr., 482, 485 

Lloyd, Thomas, 356 

Loans, War, 208, 238, 519 

Lobdy, Daniel, 78 

Locke, John, 350, 353 

Loe, Thomas, 153 

Loflin, Seth, 443 

Logan, James, 361-5, 368, 372-4, 
380, 383 

Logan, William, 380 
Loire, 268 

Lollards and War, 27 
London Friends and Militia, 56 
London Friends' Meetings (Beck and 
Ball), 74, 188 n. 

Long Island, 354 

Long, James, 266 »., 267 n., 268, 271 
Long Sutton, 94-5? 98 
Longfellow, Evangeline, 401 n. 
Londoun, Lord, 374 3 8 5 n - 




INDEX 


550 

Louis XIV, 138, 148, 158, 318, 320, 453 

Louis XVI, 459 

Louisburg, 371 

Love, John, 178 

Lower, Emmanuel, 351 

Lower, Thomas, 108, 325 

Lowther, William, 66 

Luddites, 214 

Luke, John, 314 

Lurgan, 102 

Lurting, Thomas, in Navy, 52-4, 
528 $ with Press Gang, 84-5 ; 
treatment of “ Turks,” 85-8, 462 
Lusitania riots, 496 
Lutherans, 365 
Luxford, Thomas, 528 
Lyons, Poor Men of, 24 
Lythall, William, 239 
Lyttelton, Alfred, 483 

Maccamore, Thomas, 340 
Macedonia, 271, 487 
Macombe, Linley, 430 
Macon, Ahijah, 442-3 
Macon, Gideon, 442 
Macon, Isaiah, 443 
Madagascar, 477, 521 
Magistrate,Friends attitude to the, 58-9, 
142, 144, 181, 532-3 
Mahomet, 121 
Maine, 421 

Maitland, S. R., on Walderses, 23 n., 25 
Majorca, 85 
Majuba, 299 
Malines, Robert, 528 
Mallet, Colonel, 3x9 
Manchester Guardian , 488 »., 508 n., 
5 i 5 n. 

Manchester, 276-7, 281, 284 
Mansion House Fund, 269 
Map, a Quaker, 312 
Marcion, 22 
Marcus Aurelius, 15-16 
Marcy, Daniel, 528 
Markel, Dr., 495 

Markham, Governor, 356, 358, 366 
Marque, Letters of, 187, 195, 203, 208, 
229-30 

Marriage to non-Friend, disownment 
for, 226 n. 

Marryot, Captain, 51 

Mars, Scythian worship of, 303 

Marsh, Esquire, 66 


Marsilac, Jean de, 467-9 
Marten, Howard, 512 n. 

Martin, Josiah, 465 
Martin of Tours, St., 17-18 
Martinique, 320 
Marx, Karl, 166 
Maryland, 327, 356 
Mason, John, 528 
Massachusetts, 327, 333, 335, 340 
Massachusetts, Colony Records of, 333 
Massey, Daniel, 205 
Matlock, Timothy, 412 
Maude, Aylmer, on Doukhobors, 34, 
271 n. 

Maximilian, Martyrdom of, 18 
Maxwell, Captain, 511 
Mead, William, 153, 156 n., 528 
Meeting, Quarterly, 69, 226 
Meeting for Sufferings, 74-80, 89, 

114 n., 165, 178, 185-6, 251, 298, 
455, 538 ; in Monmouth Rebellion, 
97-100 ; in Irish wars, 102, 108 ; 
and Barclay’s Apology, 191-3, 523 ; 
and illuminations, 196, 204 ; and 
militia, 197, 200, 206-7, 212-15, 
246 ; on French War, 288 ; on 
corn monopoly, 210 $ on Crimean 
War, 259-60, 534-5 ; on Franco- 
German War, 266 ; and West In¬ 
dies, 312-14 ; Committees of, 
Continental, 470, 475 ; Austra¬ 
lasian, 489 ; Peace, 486 $ on 
outbreak of war, 493 ; on consci¬ 
entious objectors, 507, 511 ; on 
censorship, 514-15 
relief given by, to Greek Refugees, 
251 ; to Ireland, 103, 253 j to 
Finland, 262; to France, 
266-70, 498 j to Balkans, 271, 
487 ; presents address to William 
III, 108 ; to George II, 200, 
208 ; to Regent, 215 $ to Lord 
John Russell, 245 ; to Czar 
Nicholas I, 257 ; on Pennsylvania, 
371-9 ; on American Civil War, 
427 $ on South African War, 
481, 484 $ on Naval Estimates, 
486 

Meeting-houses, occupied by soldiers, 
77 ; sealing of, 471 ; shelter 
alien enemies, 496 
Meidel, Christopher, 475 
Mendenhall, Tamar Kirk, 410 n. 




INDEX 


55i 


Mennell, Henry Tuke, 267 269 n. 

Menno Symons, 30 
Mennonites, 15, 23 n., 30-3; in 

Holland, 31, 453, 455 j in 
France, 31-2 ; in Germany, 32, 
453, 455 n.y 472 ; in Russia, 32-3, 
257, 461-2 } in Pennsylvania, 

356 ; in Virginia, 396, 439 ; in 
Canada, 33 ; in United States, 33, 
517 ; work and sufferings during 
the Great War, 519-21 
Meriden, 189 
Metternich, 462 
Metz, 266, 267 n., 268, 270 
Meuse district, Relief in, 499 
Mexico, War with, 422 
Mifflin, Thomas, 399, 400, 409 
Mifflin, Warner, 408 
Miles, J. E., 502 rt. 

Military, Warning against assistance of, 

214* 3 2 3 * 49 ° . . 

Military service v. Conscription, 
Militia 

Militia, Sufferings for, 55, 75-6, 185, 
187, 189, 197-9* 202* 2 ° 5 * 20 7 * 
211-15, 245; in West Indies, 
310-16, 318 ; in American colo¬ 
nies, 329-30, 340-4, 348-5 2 
enlistment in, 187, 189, 203, 205, 
208 ; hire of substitutes, 198-9 ; 
rate mixed with poor rate, 200, 
212, 323 

Militia Acts, 54, 197-8* 200 > 2 ° 5 ~ 7 > 
212, 213, 245-6, 264, 280 $ in 
American colonies, 331» 335 * 34 °> 
343 * 348 - 5 2 * 357 * 365* 370 - 1 , 
417, 421 

Exemption of Quakers, 213, 246, 
331* 349 * 35 °“ 2 ’ 39 8 * 4 I 7“ l8 * 
488 

Militia Christi, 15 n., 20 22 n. 

Militia Commissioners, 43, 54 ~ 6 * 62 
Milledge, Captain Antony, 52, 528 
Millington, William, 528, 531 
Milton, John, 25 
Minden, 460, 471-5 
Mira beau, 467-8 

Missions, Friends’, among Indians, 
417, 449—50 ; in Alaska, 45 ° » 
in Far East, 477 
Misson, Henri, on Friends , 462 
Mitchell, Lieutenant Thomas, 528 
Moddyford, Sir Thomas, 314 


Mollison, Gilbert, 457 
Molokans, 33-4* 461 
Monk, General, 49, 61, 65, 531 
Monmouth, James, Duke of, 91-4 
Monmouth Rebellion, 70, 91-9, 154* 
308 

Monopoly, 210, 366 
Montanists, 18, 21 
Montanus, 21 
Montesquieu, 465 

Monthly Meetings, 69, 186-7, 214, 
224-5, 387* 389* 4 o°* 4 ° 5 * 4 2 4 - 5 * 
5 ° 4 - 5 * 536-8 
Moor, Thomas, 68 
Moore, John, 528 
Moorland, Captain John, 528 
Moravians, 27-8, 385 
Morley, Lord, 480 ; Life of Cobden, 
208 n.y 252 n. ; Life of Gladstone , 
274, 293 n. ; Voltaire, 463 
Morning Advertiser, 210 
Morning Meeting, Second Day, 75, 

114, 196 

Morning Star, 262 
Morris, Robert, 407, 409 
Morris, William, 529 
Morris, Captain William, 529 
Mount Holly, 344, 347 
Mount Nories, Earl of, 219 
Musgrave, George, 529 

Nailsea, 91 

Nantes, Edict of, 468 
Nantucket, 200, 394-5 
Napier, Admiral, 261, 281 
Napoleon, 31-2* 209, 243, 524 
Napoleon III (Louis), 246, 254—6, 
287-8, 291 

Narragansett Bay, 331-3 
Natal, 485 

National Biography, Dictionary of, 183 
National Service League, 486, 493 
Navigation Acts, 388 
Navy Bill, 212 

Navy, Friends in 51 ; Friends pressed 
into, 78, 80-4, 178, 185 
Navy Rate, 214-15 
Naylor, James, 45-6, 58 105, 112, 

5 2 9 * 533 

Nazarenes, 34-5, 439 
Neander, Church History, 15 n., 20, 21 n. 
Neave, J. J., 439 447 

Nebuchadnezzar, 320 






INDEX 


55 2 

Neck and Heels, Tying, 311, 313, 442 
Nesbitt, Robert, 391 
Nevis, 307, 315-18, 322-4 
New England, Persecution of Friends 
in, 121, 307, 333, 392-3 
New England Meeting for Sufferings, 
392, 422 

New England Yearly Meeting, 394, 
434 > 436 

New Jersey, 138, 154, 211 n., 329, 344, 

353 , 3 6 3 > 367 > 39 1-2 
New Testament, 18, 23-4, 27, 231, 
238, 251, 257, 261, 267 n., 276, 
277278, 288, 317, 421, 458, 
522 

New York, 328, 343, 389, 392, 425, 430 
New York Meeting for Sufferings, 
383 n., 392, 427 n., 436 
New York Yearly Meeting, 328 n., 434 
New Zealand, 488-90, 516, 521 
New Zealand Freedom League, 516 
New Zealand General Meeting, 490,492 
Newcastle, 266 
Newfoundland Fisheries, 200 
Newgate, 153, 211 
Newman, Sir George, 501, 503 
Newport, (Rhode Island), 333-4 
Newton, Isaac, 433 
Nicholas I, Czar, 257-9, 534 
Nicholas II, Czar, 271 
Nicholas IV, Pope, 27 
Nicholas, Secretary, 60, 66 
Nicholson, Thomas D., 267 n. 
Nicolay, Baron, 262 
Nield, Theodore, 267 n. 

Niles' Register, 417 

Nimeguen,Treaty of, 137,151, 162, 192 
No Conscription Fellowship, 507-8 
Non-Combatant Service, 507-12, 516, 
5 i8 >. 53 8 

Non-Resistance, Doctrine of, 25, 71, 
286, 321, 419 

Norcott, William B., 267 n., 269 
Norris, Isaac, 362, 365, 383 
Norris, John, 138 
North, Lord, 204 
Norway, Friend in, 475-7, 521 
Norwich, 208 

Oath of Allegiance, 47, 49, 108, 156, 
319, 396-7, 407, 410-ik, 438, 
444, 522 

Obedience, Passive, 117 


Obernkirchen, 475 
Ohio, 418, 428, 434 
Ohio Yearly Meeting, 416 
Old Testament, Marcion on, 22 j 
early heretics and, 23 $ Walden- 
sians and, 25 ; Barclay on, 141 ; • 
Dymond on, 250 $ Gurney on, 251 
Oldcastle, Sir John, 27 
Oldenburg, Duchess of, 460 
Onas, 366, 384 
Opium traffic, 254 
Oregon boundary dispute, 264 
Origen, 19, 22 ; Contra Celsum, 

19 n. ; Horn, in Jesu Nave, 19 n. 
Ormond, Duke of, 153 
“ Orthodox ” Friends (in America), 
416, 425, 427 n., 430,434,447-51, 
5 J 7 

Osborn, Jesse, 444 
Osborne, Colonel William, 529 
Owen, Robert, 165 
Oxford, 153, 185-6 

Pace, Edmund, 267 n. 

Pacifico, Don, 279 
Paine, Thomas, Common Sense, 404 
Palatinate, 356, 365, 455 
Paley, Archdeacon, 248 
Palmer, Colonel, 424 
Palmerston, Lord, 260, 273, 279—80, 
283-4, 287-8, 291 
Panics, War, 280, 287 
Paris, 260, 267, 269-70 
Paris, Peace of, 183, 229, 291 
Parish, Thomas, 529, 531 
Parker, Alexander, 55 n., 62 n., 530 
Parker, William, 529 
Parkman, F., Conspiracy of Pontiac, 375 
Parliament, Convention, 61 
Partridge, Richard, 378 
Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 356, 537 
Paterini, 23 

Pattison, George, 85, 87 
Paul Thomas, implicated in Mon¬ 
mouth Rebellion, 97 
Paulicians, 23 
“ Paxton Boys,” 385, 398 
Peace, Friends work for, 215, 503, 
v. also Testimony for Peace 
Peace Conference, at Baltimore, 447 ; 
at Manchester, 208, 275, 281 ; at 
Philadelphia, 450 j at Winona 
Lake, 517 



INDEX 


Peace Congress, International, 244, 256, 
258, 260, 493 

Peace Sects, in Early Church, 21-4 ; 
in Middle Ages, 24-8 ; since the 
Reformation, 28-35 
Peace Society, American, 244, 418, 448 
Peace Society, English, 243-4, 248, 
2 54 > 2 57 > 263 
Peace, Tracts on, 113 foil. 

Pearson, Anthony, 55 

Pearson, Professor Karl, 233, 236, 240 

Pease, Henry, 257 

Pecock, Reginald, 27 

Peel, Sir Robert, 264 

Peitsmeyer, Ernest, 473 

Peitsmeyer, Christian, 473 

Pelham Committee, 510 

Pemba, 477 

Pemberton, Israel, 371, 375, 377, 384, 
387-8, 406 

Pemberton, James, 377, 379-80, 383, 
386, 400, 404, 406-7 
Pemberton, John, 377, 471 
Pembroke, Earl of, 95 
Penington, Isaac, address to Army, 
123 $ paper of peace principles, 
124-8, 146 ; allows defence to 
non-Quakers, 126, 128, 171-2, 

238, 486, 523 ; on toleration, 128 
Penn, Admiral, 153-4, 353 
Penn, Hannal, 365, 369 
Penn, Richard, 386-7 
Penn, Thomas, 369 
Penn, William, 40, 100, 114 137-8, 

147, 155, 166, 273, 312, 329, 454, 
456, 458} Life, 153-4;. and 
Pennsylvania, 353-75 j policy to 
Indians, 365-9, 449 ; preface 

to Fox’s Journal, 147, 157 ; 

to Barclay’s Truth Triumphant, 
157-8 $ Essay Towards the Peace 
of Europe, 158-65, 169 ; Fruits 
of Solitude, 155 j Good Advice 
to the Church of England, 155 $ 
No Cross, No Crown, 154, 156-7, 
456, 468 

Penney, Norman, 115, 425, 533 
Penn-Logan Correspondence, 361 n., 
362 n., 365 n., 374 n. 
Pennsylvania, 154, 211 n., 320, 329, 
344, 346, 349, 353 ~ 8 4 > 398-414? 
455 n., 464-5, 467, 537 ; constitu¬ 
tion of, 354-5 


553 

Pennsylvania, Annals of (Hazard), 
366 n. 

Pennsylvania Assembly and Council, 
Friends in, 273, 356-9, 373-82, 
383, 400, 523 

Pennsylvania, Colonial and Federal 
History, 380 

Pennsylvania, History of (Proud), 368 n. 
Pennsylvania Magazine, 363 n., 366 n., 
368 n., 377 n. 

Pennsylvania, Memoirs of Historical 
Society, 359 n., 360 n., 361 n., 

362 n., 364 n. 

Pepys, Samuel, 153 

Perrott, John, 452 

Petchell, John, 72 

Peter the Great, Czar, 456-8 

Petersburg Army Prison, 442-3 

Petersburg, St., 257 

Peverell, Captain William, 530 

Phayre, Colonel, 529 

Philadelphia, 203, 358, 362, 364, 368, 

37 2 > 375 > 3 8 5 > 3 88 ~ 9 > 39 J > 39 8 > 
400, 450, 459 

Philadelphia Friends' Historical Society 
Bulletin, 203 n., 374 n., 434 n. 
Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, 

375 > 3 8 3 > 3 8 7 > 39 2 > 399 ~ 4 °°, 
403-12, 422, 426 

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 38, 224, 

3 28 »•> 343 n -> 345 > 373 ~ 8 °> 39 °~ I > 
399, 407-8, 413-14, 430, 434, 

437 > 44 8 > S l 7 n > 5 l8 
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hick- 
site), 425, 437 

Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting, 376, 

. 37 8- 9 » 537 
Philippines, 450 
Phillips, Sir Edward, 95 
Philly, John, 452-3 
Philo, 22 

Pickering Monthly Meeting, 232 

Piedmont, 25 

Piety Promoted, 307 n. 

Pigott, William, 348 
Pike, Corporal Richard, 529 
Pike, Joseph, 104 
Pilgrim Fathers, 29 
Pirates, 363 

Pitt, Andrew, 186, 464 
Pittway, Captain Edward, 529 
Place, Francis, 166 
Plato, 145 



INDEX 


554 

Please, Thomas (or Plaise), implicated 
in Monmouth Rebellion, 98-9 
Plymouth Brethren, 35 
Poland, 500-1, 521 
Political History of England', 191 n., 
193 n. 

Poll Tax paid for George Fox, 73 
Pontiac, Conspiracy of, 385 
“ Poor Men, Catholic,” 26 
Poor rate, 200 

Poor, Society for Bettering the Condi¬ 
tion of the, 210 

Pope, Quaker pamphlets against, 
118-9, 121 
Poperinghe, 502 
Popish Plot, The, 68, 155 
Porter, Major, 61, 64 
Portsmouth (Rhode Island), 328 
Prayers for Victory, 142, 149 
Predeaux, James, 74 
Presbyterians, 64, 339 j from Ulster, 
in Pennsylvania, 365, 368, 370, 
384, 385-8, 399, 409 
Press Bureau, Official, 515 
Press Gang, 78, 178-9 
Price, Joseph Tregelles, 243-4 
Priestley, Joseph, 240 
Priestly, Adam, 512 
Pringle, Cyrus, 430-3 
Prison Reform, Friends and, 211, 514 
Privateers, 179, 208, 309, 319, 321, 
363, 402 ; Friends concerned in, 
187, 195, 202-3, 469 
Prize Goods, 195-6, 202-3 
Prussia, 255, 269, 460, 471-5 
Publicani, 23 

“ Publishers of Truth,” 40 
Pumphrey, Stanley, 437 n. 

Pumphrey, William, 267 n. 

Punch, 245 

Pursloe, Captain, 529 

Pusey, Caleb, 368 

Pyott, Captain Edward, 529 

Pyrmont, 471, 475 

Quaker Embassies on Continent, 501 
Quaker Family, Records of 196 n., 
274 n., 460 n. 

Quakeriana (Hicks), 189, 234 n., 236 
Quaker, name of, 50, 531 
Quakers, Quakerism <v. Friends, 
Society of 

Quarry, Colonel, 359-60 


Quarterly Review, 249 n. 

Query concerning war, Yearly Meeting, 
186, 195, 200, 203, 207-8, 228, 
247, 522 

Raoul, Daniel, 468 
Randall, Francis, 101 
Ranters, 40, 57, 150 
Rates, Church, 278 
Raparees, 102, 105, 107 
Ray, James, 189 
Raynal, Abbe, 465 
Rawlinson, Thomas, 45 n. 

Rebellion, Irish, narratives of, 216 foil. 
Red Cross Society, 268, 503, 518 
Refugees, Belgian, 477, 500, 502-3 j 
Greek, 251 

Register, National, 507, 516 
“ Regulation, War of the,” 352 
Relief, given by Friends in Irish War, 
103 $ in War of Independence, 
202, 211 224, 232, 251 n., 

390-2 ; to London poor, 210-11 $ 
to Greek refugees, 251 ; in Irish 
famine, 252-3 5 to Finland, 255, 
262 $ to France, 266-71 ; to 
France and Belgium, 497-501, 502, 
515, 518, 521 ; from West Indian 
Friends, 322 ; to Acadians, 401 $ 
in American Civil War, 427, 447 j 
in South African War, 484-5 ; to 
Balkans, 271, 487 ; to Germany 
and Austria, 457, 497, 501, 521 ; 
to Russia, 271, 500, 518, 521 j 
to Poland, 500, 521 ; to Serbia, 
500, 521 } to alien enemies, 

493-7 

Revenue, caution against defrauding, 
196 

Revolution, American, Friends and 
the, 388-415 

Revolution, French, 208, 395, 465-9 
Revolution of 1688, 70 
Reynolds, Richenda E., 267 n. 
Rheims, 498 

Rhode Island, 316, 328-9, 330-6, 353, 
366, 388, 393-4, 523 ; law to 
relieve conscientious objectors, 331 
Rhode Island Colony Records, 331 n. 
Rhode Island, History of 331 n. 

Rhode Island Yearly Meeting, 328 
336 - 7 > 343 

Richard, Henry, 212 n., 245 n., 254 



INDEX 


555 


Richardson, George, 475 rt. 

Richardson, Isaac, 196 n. 

Richardson, Major, 50 
Richmond, 502 

Richmond (Virginia), 439, 442-3, 

446-7 

Richmond, Duke of, 190 
Rickman, William, 392 
Rigault, Nicholas, 15 n. 

Rigley, Walter, 267 n. 

Riots against militia, 197 
Ripa Island, 492 
Roberts, John, 409 
Roberts, Moses, 410 
Roberts, Thomas, 491 
Robertson, Life of John Bright , 277 
280-1 n. 

Robespierre, 31 
Robinson, Joseph, 233 
Robinson, George, 452 
Robinson, Richard, 55, 72 
Robson, Isaac, in Russia, 33 
Robson, S. E., Life of J. Rowntree, 
484 n. 

Rochdale, 278, 289 
Rochester, 476 
Rochester, Earl of, 313 
Roe, Major Henry, 529 
Roman Army, Christians in, 15-18, 
20 

Ross, Betsy, 412 
Rotch, Benjamin, 467 
Rotch, William, 395, 466-7 
Rotten, Dr. Elisabeth, 497 
Rotterdam, 454 
Roumania, 487 
Rous, John, 307 
Routh, John, 231 

Royal Army Medical Corps, 503, 515 
Rowntree, Allan, 227 n. 

Rowntree, Francis, 529, 531 

Rowntree, Isabella, 485 

Rowntree, J. W., Essays and Addresses, 

79 *• 

Rowntree, Joshua, 481, 482-5, 523 
Royal Prince (man-of-war), 80-3 
Royal Society, 169 
Royalists, Friends as, 56, 64 
Ruinart, Acta Marty runt, 18 n. 
Rupert, Prince, 136 
Russell, Admiral, 314 
Russell, Lord John, 245, 280, 287, 
291 


Russell, Lord William, 114 
Russia, 162, 168, 456-8, 460-61, 518 ; 
famine relief in, 271, 477, 500, 
518 $ Peace deputation to, 255, 
257 - 8 , 477 , 534-5 
Ryswick, Peace of, 109, 165 

Saar Valley, 268 

Saccho, Reinerius, On Heretics, 25 
Saffron Walden, 165, 207, 215 
St. Pierre, Abb6, 169 
St. Stephen's House (A. B. Thomas), 
494 495 n. 

Salem, 328, 392 

Salisbury, prison camp, 438, 445 n. 
Salonika, 500 
Salthouse, Thomas, 61-2 
Sands, David, 221 
Sansom, Oliver, 529 
Sarawak, 263 
Savage, Thomas, 190 
Save the Children Fund, 501 
Scarborough, 70-1, 79-80 ; riot at, 
482-3 

Scarth, Thomas, 230 
Schleswig-Holstein, 255-6, 258 

291-2 

Schmidt, Frederick, 474 n. 

Schmidt, Henry, 474 
Schomberg, Duke of, 102 
Schreiner, Cronwright-, Mr., 482 
Schwenkfeldians, 29, 453 
Scio, Massacre of, 251 
Scot, James, <v. Monmouth, Duke of 
Scotland, Friends in, 49, 50 n., 134-5* 
530 

Scott, Job, 394 

Scott, a Quaker implicated in Mon¬ 
mouth Rebellion, 93, 95, 98 
Scullabogue, Massacre of, 220, 223 
Sedgemoor, 91, 94, 95 
Seebohm, Benjamin, 475 n. 

“ Seekers,” 40 
Sefferenson, Gerard, 78 
Seine, Department of, 269 
Seller, Richard, 80-4, 325 
Senegal, 182-3 

Separations, 69 251 n. ; in America, 

416, 450 
Serbia, 500, 521 
Sermaize, 498 

Sermon on the Mount, 41, 170, 1787 
298 




INDEX 


556 

Seven Years War, 183, 194, 196, 343, 
346 

Seventh Day Adventists, 35 
Sewel, Jacob, 454 

Sewel, William, History of the Quakers, 
4 on., 57, 59 100 77., 119, 454, 

527-9 

Sewell, J. T., 22777. 

Shackamaxon, Treaty of, 367 
Shackleton, Abraham, 218, 251 n. 
Sharpless, President Isaac, 359, 400 ; 
Political Leaders of Provincial 
Pennsylvania , 356 77., 388 n. 

Quaker Experiment , A, 357, 359, 
3 ^ 4 - 5 > 370 , 372, 382 

Quakers in the American Colonies , 

403 413 77. 

Quakers in the Revolution , T/fc, 

369 77., 383 77., 389 77., 400 77., 

40177., 403 77., 40477., 40677., 

410 77., 414 77. 

Shawnee Indians, 369, 375, 385 77. 
Sheridan, General, 438 
Sherman, General, 428 
Shewell, Thomas, 529 
Shields, North, 91 
Shillitoe, Thomas, 3177. 

Shute, Bishop of Durham, 210 
Sibford, 206 

Sicklemore, Captain James, 529 
Sidney, Algernon, 114, 354 
Sigismund, King of Poland, 32 
Simcock, John, 357 
Simpson, John, 529, 531 
Six Weeks Meeting, 316 
Skipton, General Meeting, 452 
Slavery, Friends and, 194-5, 204, 209, 
211, 238, 250-1, 254, 263, 289, 
308, 336, 344-5, 388, 401, 416, 
422-4, 429, 438, 447 $ protest of 
Germantown Friends against, 356, 
536-7 

Sloane, Sir Hans, 166 
Slocombe, Roger, implicated in Mon¬ 
mouth Rebellion, 98 
Smailes, Thomas, 231 
Smiley, Albert, 448 
Smith, Goldwin, United States , 288 n. 
Smith, John, 340 
Smith, Joseph, 267 77. 

Smith, Joseph, Catalogue of Friends' 
Books , 122, 527-9 
Smith, Peter, 215 


Smith, Richard, 529 
Smith, William, writings on peace, 
128-31, 146 

Smollett, History of England , 182-3 
Smuggling, 196 
Smyth, John, 29-30 
Snowdon, Thomas, 267 n. 

Social Reform, 155, 166, 211, 345, 
523 . 

Social Science Congress, 266 
Socialism, 165 
Socrates, 145 

Soldiers, sufferings of, 149, 173 ; as 
policemen, 58 ; disturb meetings, 
61, 69 ; occupy meeting-houses, 
77 ; converted to Quakerism, 
45-5 74 > 170, 527-9 

Sole Bay, Battle of, 82-3 
Somerton, 92, 94 
Somme district, relief in, 499 
Soudan, War in, 272 
South Africa, 521 

South African Wars, 272, 299, 450, 
481-5 

Southern Heroes (Cartland), 424 77., 
428 77., 437-48 

Southern Quakers and Slavery (Weekes), 
348 77., 350 77., 352 77., 395 77., 

39777., 417 77., 42477. 

Southey, Robert, 248-9 

Spain, War with, 228, 336, 370 $ 
(United States), 450 
Spanish Succession, War of, 166, 227, 
337? 360 

“ Spanktown Forgery,” 406 

Spectator , The , 385, 462 

Spence Watson, Robert, 267, 269, 

27077., 271, 482, 523 

Spies, Quakers suspected as, 270, 390, 
393 

Spinoza, 30 77., 453 
Spitalfields, 210 
Spotswood, Governor, 348 
Sp ra gge> Sir Edward, 80-3 
Stacey, George, 474 
Staking-out, 432 
Stamp Act, 398 
Standon, 205 

Stanton, Harry E., 512 n. 

Stanton, Secretary, 428, 433, 434-6 
Stapleton, Colonel, 315, 317 
Star, badge of War Victims’ Com¬ 
mittee, 268 





INDEX 


State Trials, 66 

Statistics of Friends of military age, 
5 ° 4 - 5 > 538 

Stewart, J. Fyffe, 267 n. 

Stille, C. J., 377 n., 378 
Stoddart, Captain Amor, 529 
Story, George, 101 

Story, Thomas, 31 101 n., 131, 

180-2, 319-20, 337-43, 381 n., 
457 , 523 
Street, 259 

Strode, Sir George, 81 n. 

Stubbs, John, 47, 454, 529 
Stubbs, Thomas, 529 
Student Army Training Corps, 520 
Stundists, 33 
Sturge, C. D., 234 n. 

Sturge, Joseph, 212, 244-6, 253-8, 

261-3, 285, 523 
Sturge, Wilson, 267 n., 

Sully, 158, 159, 169 
Sultan, The 452 
Sum of the Scriptures, The, 27 
Sumner, Charles, 289, 291 
Sunderland, 196 n. 

Surinam, 307 
Susquehanna, 385 n. 

Swarthmore Account Book, 73 
Swarthmore College, 478, 520 
Swarthmore Hall, 47, 62, 70, 316 
Swarthmore MSS., 45 n., 48 n., 50, 
55 n., 56 n., 6m., 62 n., 68 n., 
73 n., 78 n., 89 113 n., 114 n., 

528-9, 53i 

Sweden, 148 

Swedes in Pennsylvania, 356, 360, 

# 367 

Swift, Henry D., 433 
Swinton, John, 134 
Switzerland, 521 
Syria, 477, 521 

Talbot, Thomas, 76 
Talby, William, 72 
Tatham, M., 502 n. 

Taunton, 93, 96 

Taylor, John Burnett, 267 n. 

Taylor, Captain Thomas, 529 
Tedyuscung, 384-5 
Temperance, 254 
Temple, Sir William, 159 
Tennant, Mr. (Under-Secretary for 
War), 512 n. 


557 

Tennessee, 418, 438, 440, 441 n., 445 
Tennyson, Lord, 302 
Territorial Army, 486 
Terry, John, 343 
Tertiaries, 26 

Tertullian, 16, 18-19, 21 i De 

Corona, 17-19 ; Apologeticus, 18 
De ldolatria, 18 n. 

“ Testimonies,” of Friends, all inter¬ 
related, 197, 522 

“ Testimony ” of Friends, for peace 
and against war, 40-1, 44, 186, 
188, 189, 192, 194, 211-12, 214, 
216, 243, 247, 264, 309, 343, 389, 
399, 407, 430, 434, 487, 504-6, 
5 I 3 > 5 * 7 > 522-4 ; failure to 

uphold, 218, 224-40, 347, 348, 
362, 386, 389, 401-2, 409, 422, 
424-6, 437, 441 n. ; enlistment of 
Friends, 60, 105, 187, 189, 203, 
205, 214, 225 n., 486, 504-5, 507, 
5 r 5> 5 1 9> 538 ; opposition to 
testimony by individuals, 263, 
482, 503-4, 523 

“ Testimony,” against revolution, 89, 
99, 108-9, 1 H-i7> 133* 15G 185, 
218, 350-2, 355, 403, 408 
Thaxted, 207, 214 
Thirty Years War, 138 
Thomas, Abel, 393 
Thomas, Allen C., 425 n., 517 
Thomas, Anna B., 494 
Thomas, Governor, 370-1 
Thomas, Dr. Henrietta, 496 
Thomas, R. and A., History of Friends 
in America, 388, 416 n., 425 n., 
450 n., 451 n., 517 n., 520 n. 
Thomson, Charles, 385 n., 399, 406 
Thomson, Peter, 412 
Throckmorton, Job, 446 
Thumbs, Hanging up by, 443, 445 
Thurloe, State Papers, 49 n., 50 n., 
307 n. 

Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, 206 
Tickell, Hugh, 67 
Timahoe, 186 n. 

Times, The, 257 n., 258 n., 261, 266, 
282, 289, 292-3, 484 
Tithes, 212, 245 
Todleben, General, 33 
Tolstoyans, 34, 271 
Toning, 456 
Torbay, 101 




INDEX 


558 

Tories, in American Revolution, 389, 
399 

Tortola, 322 
Tottenham, 182, 184 
Trade and Plantations, Committee for, 
311, 359 } Board of, 371, 377-8 
Trafalgar, 212 
Trained Bands, 74, 185 
Transportation, 308, 311 
Transvaal v. South Africa 
Trent affair, 265, 289 
Trevelyan, G. M., 503 5 England 
under the Stuarts , 77, 117, 155 ; 
Life of John Bright, 274, 282, 287, 
291-2, 302 

Trevelyan, Sir George, The American 
Revolution, 201 n., 242, 393, 404-5 
Tribunals, Military Service, 508-11, 
533 

Trophy Money, 142, 189, 195 
Trueblood, Dr. Benjamin, 448 
Tryon, Governor, 392 
Tucker, Captain, 94 
Tuke, James Hack, 253, 267 269 

Tuke, William, 211 
Turkey, 162, 164, 168, 277, 281, 
487 

Turner, Robert, 529 
Tverchikoff, General, 33 
Tylor, C., The Camisards , 470 n. 
Typhus, 500 

Tyrconnell, Duke of, 105 
Ulster, 103, 217 

Unarmed Ships, Difficulties of 88-9, 
226-7, 243, 321 
Unitas F rat rum, 27 

United States, 254, 263, 264, 265, 
416-51, 517-21 
Urquhart, Mr., 276 
Ury, seat of Barclays, 135 

Valley Forge, 396, 408, 411-12 
Van der Werf, Jan, 192-3 
Varrantrap, Dr., 256 
Verdun, 499 

Vereeniging, Peace of, 486 
Vergennes, Comte de, 469 
Vermont Monthly Meeting, 430 
Verney, Sir Harry, 42 
Verona, 251, 461 
Versailles, 453 
Vestal, Tilghman, 445 


Victoria, Queen, 273 
Villiers, C. P., 290-1 
Vienna, 251, 461, 501 
Vinegar Hill, 221 
Vinogradoff, Professor, 471 n. 

Virginia, 327, 345, 348-9, 393 ? 39 6 * 
407-8, 438, 441, 443, 446 
Virginia, Exiles in, 403 n. 

Virginia, Statutes at Large of, 348-9 
Virginia Yearly Meeting, 328 n., 396, 
417 

Vitry, 498 

Vives, Luis, 20, 28, 142 
Voltaire, 139, 152, 462-5 
Volunteer Movement, 246, 265 

Waistcoats, Quaker gift to Army, 
189 

Wakefield, 215 
Waldeck, 471 

Waldenses, 23 n., 24-6, 468 
Waldo, Peter de, 24 
Walker, John, 230 
“ Walking Purchase,” The, 369 
Wall, James, 529 
Wain, Nicholas, 412, 414 
Walpole, Sir Robert, 186, 228 
Walters, Thomas, 529 
Wanton, Edward, 335 
Wanton, John, 335-6 
War, economic arguments against, 167, 
281, 292, 303 ; moral arguments 
against, 303 

War, the Great, 492-521 ; Friends 
fined or imprisoned during, 508, 
512-13, 515-16, 519-20, 538 
War Taxes, payment of, 29 n., 73, 
2I 3 _I 4 , 34 i> 346 , 358 - 9 > 363-5* 
376, 396^ 

War Victims’ Relief Fund, Friends* 
(later, War Relief Committee), 
266-71, 487, 497-501, 510—11, 

5 r 5 * 5 i8 > 5 21 
Ward, Cornet, 50, 529 
Warde, Captain Henry, 529 
Warder, John, 203 
Warner, Simeon, 192 
Warren, William, 178 
Warville, Brissot de, 414, 465-6 
Waseley, James, 104 
Washington, 433-4 

Washington, George, 349, 392, 396, 

408, 414-15 



INDEX 


559 


Wastfield, Robert, 529 
Waterford, 186 n., 253 n. 

Waterford, Marquis of, 253 n. 
Waterloo, 279, 283, 302 
Waters, Thomas, 56 
Watkinson, George, 529, 530-1 
Watkinson, Thomas, 530 
Watts, Arthur, 515 
Weardale, Lawrence, 91 
Weer, Philip de, 458 
Weighty Question, Somewhat Spoken to 
a (Penington), 124—8 
Well, Captain-Lieutenant Thomas, 
529 

West Indies, 307-26 
Westminster Meeting-house, 460 
Westmorland, 189 
Weston Zoyland, 95 
Wetherill, Charles, 411 
Wetherill, John Price, 413 
Wetherill, Samuel, 387, 411, 413 
Wexford, 217 

Wharton and Drinker, Quaker firm, 
398 

Wheeler, Daniel, 461 
Wheeler, Frederick, 256 
Wheeler, Governor, 315 
Whitby, 196 n., 227 
Whitby and Scarborough, Quaker 
shipowners at, 188, 227-32 
Whitehead, George, 77, 90, 98-100, 
# 108, 325, 458 

Whitehead, John, 108, 132 n., 529 
Whiting, John, in Monmouth Rebel¬ 
lion, 91-7 ; on public fasts, 97 ; 
on Declaration of Indulgence, 
100 

Whittier, J. G., 262, 290, 417, 423-4, 
426, 427 n. 

Whitwell, Thomas, 267 n. 

Wight, T., MS. of, 104-5 
Wight and Rutty, History ... of the 
Quakers in Ireland , 103 n., 107, 
186 n. 

Wilberforce, William, 204, 293 
“ Wilburite ” Friends, 518 
Wilkinson, William, 71 
William III, 89, 101-2, 108-9, 

148, 154, 277, 295, 297, 357, 
455 n. 

William and Mary, 313, 335, 357, 
453 n. 

Williams, Captain, 529 


Williams, Roger, 328 
Williamson, Under-Secretary, 67 
Williamson, William, 102 
Willoughby, Captain, 51 
Wilmington Yearly Meeting, 450 
Wilson, George, 529 
Wilson, William, 56, 529 
Winchester (U.S.), 443, 446 
Winona Lake, 517 

Winsor, Justin, History of America, 
400 n. 

Wistar, Thomas, 448 

Wooden Horse, Riding the, 74, 315 

Woolman, John, 194-5, 238, 255, 336, 

344- 8, 375-6, 381 n.y 385 n., 

5 2 3-4 5 Journal, 346-8, 375 

A Word of Remembrance to the Rich , 

345 - 6 

Wolfe, General, 194 

Worcester, Battle of, 43, 47 

Wordsworth, 284 

Workman, John, 102 

Worrell, Richard, 536 

Worship, Quaker, Barclay on, 135, 172 ; 

meetings for, 225, 390, 515 
Wrington, 92, 97 
Wyatt, Rendel, 512 n. 

Wycliffe, John, on War, 27 
Wycombe, 350 


Yarnall, Mordecai, 402 

Yarnall, Peter, 402 

Yearly Meeting, London, 182 n., 190, 

198, 224, 247, 259, 264, 267 n.y 

269, 271, 274, 349, 453, 459, 
470 n.y 471 n.y 474 n., 481, 486-7, 
489-90, 503 n.y 504-9, 513-15, 

523-4 

Yearly Meeting, London, addresses to 
William III, 109 ; to Anne, 185 ; 
to George I, 185 5 to George II, 
186, 190-1, 523 ; to George III, 

199, 204 ; petition against slave 

trade, 204 ; Advices of, 198 ; 
Epistles of, 89-90, 185-6, 191, 
195, 202, 207, 211-14, 216, 

229-30, 233, 234, 246, 247 n.y 
264-5, 272, 455, 492-3, 506, 

513-14; Epistles Received, 314, 
322-4, 348 ; Epistles Sent , 322, 
324-5 ; Minutes of, 187, 214, 229, 
237, 524 ; Proceedings, 267 n. t 



56 o 


INDEX 


47 ° 471 n.y 474 493, 510 J 

Queries from, 184-9, 196, 200, 
207, 247, 523-4 
Yellow Fever, 322, 459 
York, 502, 530 
York, Duke of, <v. James II 
Yorkshire Post , 488 rt. 

Yorkshireman, The , 203, 211 n., 213 
464 


Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting, 188, 200, 
202, 227-30, 501 

Young Men’s Christian Association, 
American, 497 
Ypres, 502 

Zimbricht, Peter, 35 
Zinzendorff, Count, 27 
Zulu War, 298 


RD 14-3* 


Printed in Great Britain by 

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING 



















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